Editing Compile farm

{{Short description|Server farm set up to compile computer programs remotely}}
{{more citations needed|date=December 2011}}
A '''compile farm''' is a [[server farm]], a collection of one or more [[server (computing)|servers]], which has been set up to compile [[computer programs]] remotely for various reasons. Uses of a compile farm include:

* ''[[Cross-platform|Cross-platform development]]'': When writing [[software]] that runs on multiple processor [[Computer architecture|architectures]] and [[operating system]]s, it can be infeasible for each [[Software developer|developer]] to have their own machine for each architecture&nbsp;— for example, one [[Computing platform|platform]] might have an expensive or obscure type of [[CPU]].  In this scenario, a compile farm is useful as a tool for developers to build and [[Software testing|test]] their software on a shared server running the target operating system and CPU.  Compile farms may be preferable to [[cross compiler|cross-compilation]] as cross compilers are often complicated to configure, and in some cases compilation is only possible on the target, making cross-compilation impossible.
* ''Cross-platform [[continuous integration]] testing'': in this scenario, each server has a different processor architecture or runs a different operating system; [[script (computer programming)|script]]s automatically build the latest version of a source tree from a [[version control]] repository.  One of the difficulties of cross-platform development is that a programmer may unintentionally introduce an error that causes the software to stop functioning on a different CPU/OS platform from the one they are using.  By using a cross-platform compile farm, such errors can be identified and fixed.
* ''Distributed compilation'': Building software packages typically requires operations that can be run in parallel (for example, compiling individual source code files).  By using a compile farm, these operations can be run in parallel on separate machines.  An example of a program which can be used to do this is [[distcc]].

One example of a compile farm was the service provided by [[SourceForge]] until 2006.  The SourceForge compile farm was composed of twelve machines of various [[computer architectures]] running a variety of [[operating systems]], and was intended to allow developers to test and use their programs on a variety of platforms before releasing them to the public.  After a [[power spike]] destroyed several of the machines<ref>{{cite web |url=http://sitedocs.sourceforge.net/status/support_cfstatus.html |title= SourceForge.net|website=sitedocs.sourceforge.net |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919010500/http://sitedocs.sourceforge.net/status/support_cfstatus.html |archive-date=September 19, 2008}}</ref> it became non-operational some time in 2006, and was officially discontinued<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.des.no/2007/05/end-of-sourceforge-as-we-know-it/ |title=The end of SourceForge as we know it |last=Smørgrav |first=Dag-Erling |date=May 20, 2007 |website=May Contain Traces of Bolts |access-date=May 18, 2018 |quote=the compile farm is no more. SourceForge discontinued it in February, without warning |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518165431/https://blog.des.no/2007/05/end-of-sourceforge-as-we-know-it/ |archive-date=May 18, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> in February 2007.

Other examples are:
* [[GCC Compile Farm]] https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm
* [[OpenSUSE Build Service]]
* [[FreeBSD]] reports service which lets package maintainers test their own changes on a variety of versions and architectures.
* Launchpad Build Farm https://launchpad.net/builders
* Mozilla has a build farm, but it is not public https://wiki.mozilla.org/ReleaseEngineering
* Debian has a build farm https://buildd.debian.org/
* [https://www.opencsw.org/extend-it/signup/to-upstream-maintainers/ OpenCSW build farm] for Solaris x86 and Sparc

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Cluster computing]]
[[Category:Servers (computing)]]


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