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Discussion on: Explain continuous integration like I'm five

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Kelly Andrews

You have a giant pile of Legos and you want to be a super cool machine.

You and three friends all decide to build different parts of the machine. At first you build your part out completely, and then you try to fit them all together.

Your machine is fragile, the pieces don't fit right and nothing works.

So you try again, this time, you build much smaller parts and fit them together sooner. They sometimes don't fit, but you can make changes really quickly so they fit and do what you want them to do. Soon you see a machine built out that does what you want and it works together.

Continuous Integration is like the second way. Smaller things get built and then are added back to the bigger thing. If something isn't working, it's easier to fix. Developers can build an end product that works well together faster than trying to build features separately.