Continuous Delivery Pipelines: How To Build Better Software Faster

by David Farley, Virtual Voice (Narrator)

This practical handbook provides a step-by-step guide for you to get the best Continuous Delivery Pipeline for your software.

Written by Dave Farley - the inventor of the Continuous Delivery Deployment Pipeline and author of the award-winning book "Continuous Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation”.

Dave Farley shares his advice and experience in this essential handbook on how to build, use and improve your Continuous Delivery Pipeline. This books explains what a Continuous Delivery Deployment Pipeline is, the key components and stages, Technical Testing, Acceptance Testing, Automation, Version Control and Infrastructure as Code. It also includes examples of world-class pipeline practice, and tips for improving your Deployment Pipelines.

If you want to create Better Software Faster, then you need Continuous Delivery, and at the heart of Continuous Delivery is the Deployment Pipeline.

You may already have a Deployment Pipeline, or be thinking about building your first! Either way, this practical handbook offers a step-by-step guide to get the best Deployment Pipeline for your software.



About the Author

Dave Farley is a pioneer of Continuous Delivery, thought-leader and expert practitioner in CD, DevOps, TDD and software development in general.

Dave has been a programmer, software engineer and systems architect for many years, from the early days of modern computing, taking those fundamental principles of how computers and software work, and shaping ground-breaking, innovative approaches that have changed how we approach modern software development. Dave has challenged conventional thinking and lead teams to build world class software.

Dave is co-author of the Jolt-award winning book - "Continuous Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation", and a popular conference speaker on Software Engineering. He built one of the world’s fastest financial exchanges, is a pioneer of BDD, an author of the Reactive Manifesto, and a winner of the Duke award for open source software with the LMAX Disruptor.

Dave is passionate about helping development teams around the world improve the design, quality and reliability of their software, by sharing his expertise through his consultancy, YouTube channel, training courses and books.

Genres: Programming, Software, Technology, Computer Science, Nonfiction, Technical

Audible Audio

First published January 20, 2021

Reviews

[Jeremy Huiskamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick read, and a nice summary of the concept, relative to the original CD book. It's mostly direct advice, with very little of the backing theory.

If you're new to CD and want to know what it's about, this is a good way to get an overview. If you're skeptical about CD, this definitely won't convince you. If you're an expert already, you probably won't learn much. If, like me, you read the original a number of years ago and need a refresher, it's fairly effective.

[Renato Todorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read handbook for anyone involved with software development.

[Steve Fenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great short read on deployment pipelines and how they help power continuous delivery. You'll get the concepts really quickly and understand practical things you can do to make it happen.

[Daniel Rankov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the book. It's like a handbook - short and right on the topic.

[Patryk Woziński · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another brilliant book by D. Farley - really short and useful. Totally recommended!

[Geroen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book by the person who coined the term Delivery Pipeline. It’s a quick read - I read it over a 2h flight -, written in an easy and approachable style. The book contains some good sound advice on how to build pipelines, though the content doesn’t go far beyond the basics. For more in depth content, the book contains many references. But by the end of the book, you’ll end with a solid (high level) understanding of what Delivery Pipelines are all about. Though I have to say: I read nothing that I didn’t know already.

What I will fault the author for, is missed opportunities:
- The content on integration testing is far too lightweight. Considering the amount of times TDD is pitched, there was a big opportunity here to talk in depth about Behaviour Driven Development (BDD).
- That also applies to security testing: Shifting Security Left should be everyone’s focus, yet there is no content in the book on that. Sure, security testing as a concept is mentioned, but at a 30000 ft level.

At the end of the day, would I recommend it?
If you are new to the concept, yes. This can serve as your easy reading entry point, it’ll cover the general concept and the basics.
But for people with experience on the topic, this book will add nothing new.

[Mojtaba Tajik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a refreshing perspective on CI/CD that isn't solely focused on technical implementations. Offers a comprehensive overview of CI/CD best practices, guiding readers on how to implement them step by step. It doesn't delve deep into technical details but instead focuses on the overarching principles of creating effective CI/CD pipelines.

As a software engineer who values clean code and code reviews, I appreciated how the book emphasized these aspects within the context of CI/CD.

However, it's important to note that this book isn't a technical manual. It doesn't provide in-depth technical implementations. Instead, it gives a clear vision of an excellent CI/CD process and how to approach it methodically.

In summary, "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" offers a non-technical yet valuable perspective on CI/CD, guiding readers towards best practices and a structured approach. It's a recommended read for those looking to grasp the holistic concept of CI/CD and its implementation.

[Yifan Yang · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a good job of explaining continuous delivery pipelines, highlighting the benefits and importance of having an automated system for ensuring that apps are ready to be released and actually releasing them. It also gives some practical tips.

But at around 140 pages, it kind of just brushes the surface of some practices and ideas. It goes through each part of the pipeline, but not in much depth, which might leave you feeling either overfamiliar or confused. It's probably more handy as a checklist or a quick reference for those who are already experts in this area.

As someone who's worked a bit on setting up CI/CD pipelines, I would appreciate if the book can provide more concrete examples or explanations on some topics.

[Isidro López · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally, I only got a couple of new ideas, to me it worked more as a positive reinforcement for my experiences and ideas :-)

BUT... I think this book can definitely be mindblowing for people without real-life experiences (or limited ones) with Continuous Delivery/Deployment pipelines or to grab "selling pitch ideas" (that's why I rate it with four stars and not with two).

I missed having specific examples (e.g. a public CD pipeline with an example in order to land what the author really meant at some points which were "blurry").

[Sérgio Azevedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very quick and practical read with strong core concepts to apply when building a pipeline.
It could only be better with more concrete examples instead of only theory, but that wasn't the purpose of the book.
It's more like a handbook on what should be on your mind if you want to build a continuous delivery pipeline.

[Henry Suryawirawan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great concise book on Continuous Delivery (CD) from the author of the original definitive book! It captures all the essence, principles, techniques required to implement CD from scratch and what important things to note for. Highly recommended for reference!

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

With around 200 pages it can be read rather quickly but contains lots of useful information. It combines agile software development, continuous delivery and tdd techniques in the book.

What I missed were some more in-depth details at some points. But overall a good read!

[William Yip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some sentences had typos that hindered understanding. Some content was repeated. That said, the book is a good primer for implementing CI/CD pipelines, a condensed version of the author's previous book "Continuous Delivery" that gives similar advice such as doing test-driven development.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book. A very concise and to the point description of how to go about getting started and then refine your delivery pipelines.

[Ortwin De witte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Straight to the essence. Reading this book should be mandatory for everybody involved in software delivery.

[Aliénor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting content, both for beginners and senior software engineers or managers. Unfortunately it is delivered in a rather self-promoting manner.

[Jordan Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, concise introduction to continuous delivery pipelines.

[Ignacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short intro to all key parts of the great delivery pipeline: from test, through commits to the release and after. Good point to start exploring and introducing into your own projects.

[Святослав · Rating 2 out of 5]

a lot of "ideology" and lack of practice case studies in depth. however, sparks some insights and ideas.

[David Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to Continuous Delivery, or a great condensed refresher for one who has previously read the much longer Continuous Delivery book.
The final chapter on LMAX is itself a great review of all the CD ideas put into practice and an indication of the sorts of things that can be accomplished if building such a Deployment Pipeline is adopted as an approach. (They key may be having buy-in from stakeholders?)

The book deliberately I imagine avoids getting into technology specifics, but it would be interesting to know more about how the DSL for acceptance tests might be implemented.

[Stefan Oldroyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thin and to the point book which is useful if you are looking at setting up a continuous delivery pipeline.