A small build is usually a build that can be run quickly by the CI server and will usually consist of a compilation step as well as running all the unit tests. A small build can be optimized by running staged builds, which will be discussed in the CI build practices section.
A large build is a build that essentially runs all of the build tasks in one large build. The disadvantage of doing a large build is that they discourage developers from running them. If a software build takes a long time to run, then many developers will avoid running the build at all. Smaller builds that run quickly encourage developers to continuously check-in their changes on a version control system and will help keep a codebase ...
