I’ve just started working on a project team with a healthy obsession with build times. It had crept up to 20 minutes before some cunning hackery by Simon and Carlos brought it down to 7. This includes running the signed off acceptance tests and the database. The trick is to keep everything in process. IO is the enemy. But that’s a story for another day.

The point is, why is a fast build so important? It was Mike that said it best: having a screamingly fast build doesn’t make it easier to do the same things, it makes it possible to do entirely new things. When a build takes less time than a trip to the water cooler, you can build (and check in) every time you go to the water cooler. Doing a build becomes part of the rhythm of developing. Test, code, refactor, build, check-in. Repeat.