Difference between build and deploy?

Question

What is the difference between a build and deploy and re-deploy? What should be done when you just have some HTML changes and no Java code changes? Should I do a build and deploy or just a re-deploy?

Answer 1

Disclaimer: Defining what build and deploy means is very subjective.

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I will start with deploy. Deploy should mean take all of my artifacts and either copy them to a server, or execute them on a server. It should truly be a simple process.

Build means, process all of my code/artifacts and prepare them for deployment. Meaning compile, generate code, package, etc.

That helped? Some people do consider deploy as part of the "build process" which I don't really argue with because generally in order to test or run you have to deploy it somewhere.

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The rule is generally if it is dynamic code, then you need to do a build/redeploy.

If you are just editing static html, css, images etc. then you can simply just patch (and preferably a server restart).

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As always when "patching" there is added risk that you could not be deploying the entire code base, or someone could do it wrong.

Personally I like doing full build/redeploys because you always know you are in-sync with your source control. However there is always risk that deployments go bad, either the build part or the install part. If your builds take a long time, or you are unnecessarily having to deploy a lot of moving parts, then consider either breaking them down into smaller deployable components or create a more complete deployment plan.

As usual there is no silver bullet here.