Code review improves code quality. That's widely accepted as fact. Yet relatively few shops do code review. Why is this so?

Well I think it's because people still associate code review with meetings and developers who like meetings are a small group.

Why do we hate meetings so? I don't think it's because they are implicitly evil or pointless (though they often are). I believe it's because even a 10 minute face-to-face empties the brain cache we've been building up to that moment. The following chart from the interwebs describes the phenomenon in terms of "Cognitive RPM" which is a great way of putting it.

Luckily code reviews don't have to involve meetings anymore. With the advent of good online code review tools, you can get your code reviews done between cognitive peaks.

Obviously I'd recommend Crucible (which works with FishEye, JIRA, IntelliJ, Eclipse, supports iterative review, has real time updates, solid integration with Git, Subversion, ClearCase, CVS, Perforce, and other stuff). But if you don't like Crucible, it seems that every man and his dog has released online code review functionality lately so you should be able to find something that suits your style and budget.

Previously I discussed how JIRA can integrate with Crucible for code reviews (part 1) and FishEye for source control integration (part 2). In this post I'll show you how JIRA can fit into your Bamboo continuous integration build process.

Builds and Issues

Continuous integration provides fast feedback to developers about the impact of code changes by running builds and tests every time changes are committed to your source control system. Bamboo is an easy-to-use continuous integration server that can build and test applications created in any programming language.

Integrate your JIRA bug tracking system with Bamboo and you can quickly see every build that included the source code relating to an issue.

Integrate JIRA and Bamboo

Connecting Bamboo and JIRA enables you to:

• Link builds to issues and issues to builds - get a detailed view of which issues are linked to completed builds and which issues are being worked on.
  
  

• Monitor your build status in JIRA Dashboards - easily track the status of your builds for a project or get a summary of a build plan using gadgets in JIRA or any OpenSocial container.
  
  

• Identify what build fixed a JIRA issue - jump to the build that fixed a JIRA issue in one-click and explore the source code changes that triggered the build.
  
  

Has your team already switched to using Google Apps for email, calendar, and documents? If you've "gone Google" or you're considering it, you'll be excited to hear about the new integrations between the JIRA Studio hosted software development suite and Google Apps. Here are a few of the really cool, useful features you get by integrating these two great applications:

JIRA Studio Activity Bar

When JIRA Studio is connected to your org's Google Apps domain, every JIRA Studio user will have access to the Activity Bar, which puts your most used applications at your fingertips no matter what screen you are viewing. The activity bar includes recent JIRA issues, outstanding code reviews, latest build results, unread email messages, upcoming events, and more. Learn more >>

Chat in JIRA Studio

Chat is an essential tool for developers to quickly communicate and solve problems. JIRA Studio puts Google Talk right into every screen of JIRA Studio. Chat with any team members that are online, receive CI build notifications, and share hyperlinks to anywhere in your code for precise communication. Learn more >>

Google Docs in JIRA Studio

Google Docs are a great way to create and edit documents like user stories, requirements and training materials, working in real-time with team members located anywhere. JIRA Studio let's you attach documents to your issues, display filtered lists of documents in a wiki page, or even embed individual documents into a wiki page for asynchronous threaded discussions. Learn more >>

JIRA Studio gadgets in GMail

A lot of people spend most of their time in their email or calendar clients. JIRA Studio provides dozens of OpenSocial gadgets that can be displayed in any OpenSocial container, including Gmail and Google Calendar. Learn more >>

Adding JIRA Studio to your Google Apps Domain

If you already have a Google Apps domain and you're ready to try JIRA Studio free for 30 days, then you can simply click the following button and you're just a few steps away from getting started!

If you've already got JIRA Studio and Google Apps but haven't integrated them, please check out our FAQ for instructions.

Learn more about JIRA Studio + Google Apps

Mike Willbanks has written up a great blog post about his experience as a PHP developer using Atlassian Bamboo for continuous integration of his PHP projects.

Check out PHP Continuous Integration with Bamboo.

This is one of the most comprehensive write-ups yet about using Bamboo for a PHP project. It covers:

• Getting Started


• PHP Depend


• PHP Code Browser


• PHP Code Sniffer


• PHP Copy/Paste Detector


• PHP Mess Detector


• PHPUnit

Mike provides detailed information of how to configure the Bamboo build plan, and reveals the exact content of the Ant script he created to run the build.

Check out PHP Continuous Integration with Bamboo.

This is the second of a three part blog series on JIRA integration. In part 1 of the series we started off discussing the value of linking issues and code reviews, we now move on to relating source code to your issues.

Source Code and Issues

Open up any development toolbox and you are guaranteed to find two things - an issue tracker and a source code management tool (SCM). Your issue tracker is keeping tabs on the work being done and your SCM is the actual work getting done.

Integrating these tools will give you a full view of how your source code is affecting the progress of the projects you are working on.

JIRA can integrate with Atlassian's FishEye to give you visibility into your Subversion, Perforce, CVS, GIT or Clearcase repository.

Integrate JIRA and FishEye

Watch the video below to see how integrating JIRA and FishEye can help you understand the source that is affecting your issues.

• Visibility into the source code that is associated with your JIRA issues - the FishEye plugin gives you visibility into your source repository through JIRA - see source and changes in your code at the project and issue level.
  
  

• Activity Streams - streams show a user's activity in your SCM along with all related activities in JIRA and Crucible. RSS feeds allow you to display this information in your preferred reader or in other places like Confluence.
  
  

• Cross linking between JIRA and FishEye - there is no context switching when using JIRA and FishEye. One click in JIRA can take you directly into any changeset, view diffs, or jump to fully annotated source in FishEye. FishEye provides detailed information on issues related to a changeset.

Leave a comment and let us know how you are using JIRA with your source code.