And what Jenkins has to do with sliced bread
If you are a KNIME user you are probably familiar with the mechanism that lets you install additional extensions and update an existing installation with later versions. If you are a KNIME developer you have probably wondered what kind of magic is involved to make this possible: getting from hundreds of line of Java code to an online update that allows users to install and update extensions. In this week's blog post we will reveal some (if not all) of this magic.
The wizard we are using in KNIME is called Buckminster (not be confused with Richard Buckminster Fuller). Buckminster's product sheet describes it as "a set of frameworks and tools for automating build, assemble & deploy (BA&D) development processes in complex or distributed component-based development". The nice thing about Buckminster is that you can use it in your SDK but there is also a headless application which is suitable for fully automating the process.
Although Buckminster is quite well documented (the BuckyBook), initially it can be overwhelming. Therefore we would like to take a closer look at the essentials that are required to build an update site from scratch.