Why you need CI

Writing software is a time-consuming and thus costly process. If you develop software for fun, it will “only” cost you your leisure time. If you work for a company (be it as a contractor or full-time employee), the time is even more valuable, as you get paid for it. As a matter of fact, companies want to reduce costs, and thus they do not want to spend more money on a feature than necessary.

A big part of our daily work is to fix defects. Delivering bug-free software is something that probably all developers would like to achieve. We do not make mistakes deliberately, yet they will always happen. There are ways, however, to reduce the costs of bugs.

The costs of a bug

A bug is considerably costly because it adds no value to the product. Therefore, we aim to catch these bugs as early as possible—the earlier we catch them, the fewer costs they will cause. The following screenshot visualizes how the costs to fix a bug increase significantly...