What is Build?

It is a piece of software which is converted from code to application format.
It consists of some set of features, bug fixes and installed on to the test server which needs to be tested by the test engineers for stability.

Build Process

Whenever the requirements are given to the developer, like out of 10 requirements 5 requirements are given to the developer for which he do coding and creates the build one.
Once coding is completed by developer then he compiles the code i.e, convert the code from high level language to low level language. After compiling code he compress the code because when the code is converted from high level language to low level language its size increases so to reduce the length or size he compress it and creates the build. Then the build is installed on the test server and testing is done by the test engineer and if test engineer finds any bug then it will be reported to the developer then the developer will fix the bug and also do work on the other requirements and delivers it in another build.
Each new build is the modified version of previous build.

Following terms are used in build process:

1) Test Cycle:- It is the time duration to test each build.

2) Re-spin:- The process of getting more than one build in the same test cycle is known as re-spin.
Whenever the build one is installed in test server the test engineer test the build and some how if there is a blocker bug i.e, the bugs due to which he can not proceed with testing the test engineer reports the bug and the developer immediately fix the bug and sends it in build two of the same test cycle and the build one is uninstalled from the test server and build two is installed and test engineer start testing build two.

3) Patch:- It is a small piece of software which acts as immediate fix for the issues.

The drawback of re-spin is that it is a time consuming process as the test engineer has to wait for long time for the installation process from build one to build two but by using patch the test engineer can do testing in build one and test engineer doesn't remain idle for long time.
Going for re-spin or patch depends on type of bug.