pedantism

Julian "The Build Doctor" Simpson prefers the term "Build Assembly Line" to "build" or "deployment" pipeline. I don't really like the term, partly because of my aversion to the assembly line metaphor, but also because it may imply the focus is on assembly (i.e. the build).

In the build pipeline as described by Jez, Dave and others, the application is assembled (built) pretty early on, and is then passed, unchanged (only built once) through the pipeline, where it is deployed and banged on in various ways.

I'm nitpicking, really, and as Julian says, it "doesn’t matter which you choose though: What’s important is having a metaphor for the thing you’re building. Otherwise you’ll build something weird." He also makes it clear he considers testing a main part of the pipeline.

But a metaphor can shape how people think about something. The drum I'm pounding these days is above moving people past continuous integration and into continuous delivery. So while I'm not bothered what other people call it, I'll probably stick with either "deployment pipeline" or "delivery pipeline" myself.

I like the Anthill blog post End to End Automation by Any Other Name, which runs through some of the terminology around devops and "continuous *" activities.