Can you explain me how Continuous Integration works?

Question

I wish to use Continuous Integration, but I'm little lost with Ant, Jenkins, CruiseControl, Phing, PHPUnderControl, etc...

What is really Continuous Integration?

I'm developping PHP application using Zend Framework, and it sounds great to deploy easily and tests piece of code.

Thanks

Answer 1

Continuous integration is a process that automatically performs a build whenever a check-in/commit occurs. This allows integration problems to be identified ASAP and makes it easier to identify who is responsible for the problem. As a bonus, continuous integration requires a completely automated build process which makes it much easier for anyone to replicate the development environment on their machine.