The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most software projects to validate code changes. By automatically rebuilding and testing the tree each time something has changed, build problems are pinpointed quickly, before other developers are inconvenienced by the failure. The guilty developer can be identified and harassed without human intervention. By running the builds on a variety of platforms, developers who do not have the facilities to test their changes everywhere before checkin will at least know shortly afterwards whether they have broken the build or not. Warning counts, lint checks, image size, compile time, and other build parameters can be tracked over time, are more visible, and are therefore easier to improve.

	* http://www.lothar.com/tech/papers/PyCon-2003/buildbot-pycon/buildbot.html
	* http://sourceforge.net/projects/buildbot/

See also AntHill, CruiseControl, MozillaTinderbox
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Seems like a key tool for the Chromium development process: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/waterfall/console

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Any personal recommendations? How easy is it to download, install, commission and use in RealLife?