Buildix: Project In A Box

Buildix is development project infrastructure in a box. Just add a virtual machine .

Thoughtworks, the ubiquitous IT consultancy with whom Martin Fowler is associated, sponsors this collection of pre-integrated and ready-to-roll project management tools.

Technologies include:

• trac Edgewall’s open-source “Integrated SCM and Project Management” (Subversion + Wiki + defect tracking)
• Subversion the open-source next-generation to CVS
• CruiseControl open-source build automation

Pros

• Works right out of the box. To run on Windows, download vmWare Player and the Buildix image, launch, and point your browser to the virtual IP address created by the VM.
• Promised integration features are nice (e.g., linking to defects by id from Wiki entries)

Cons

• As you’d expect, you’re stuck with the versions of the tools that they have chosen to pre-integrate. If you want to upgrade, you’ll need to work out any conflicts yourself (and you won’t have the benefit of the hard-won knowledge gained by integrating them in the first place.
• Documentation to back up some of the promised integration benefits (e.g., wiki syntax to link to issues, check-in syntax to tie to a particular issue) is difficult to find.

Recommendation

Worth a look if you would like to upgrade your project development infrastructure. Particularly useful to J2EE development, but also for anyone who can use ant to automate product builds.

I’m in the process of using it for a pilot project and will post any learnings along the way.

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