Periodic partial validation: cost-effective source code validation process in cross-platform software development environment

Abstract

Enterprise software development typically involves cooperation among multiple entities. In a cross-platform software development environment, developers can categorize the source code of products into platform specific and platform generic components, so that common features can be deployed seamlessly across platforms. As the complexity of component and source code inter-dependency increases, build breakages occur more frequently, and the lack of an efficient detection mechanism often results in slow response with higher costs. We present a successful cost-effective method to automatically detect and identify such breakages. We deployed a centralized code validation and policing tool, and the results prove its effectiveness as an important quality assurance component in the software development process.