ASP.NET GUI-friendly Build tools

Question

I am new to .NET programming. We are a team of 4 members developing a web based application.

We will begin our development once the Requirement Specification and other formalities are completed.

As suggested in this forum we are planning to use Visual SVN for source control. We are not aware of Build tools, we heard that MSBuild and NAnt are some build tools. Please clarify, why should we need build tools? Any book or site to learn the build process?

We heard that MSBuild and NAnt are command-line based build tools. Can we use GUI based build tools?

(Before development, we are advised to get a complete knowledge of UML, Source control, Build tools. We got enough information about UML and Source control from Stackoverflow. We wish to gather information about Build Tools ).

Answer 1

Take a look at VisualBuild.

Answer 2

Or have a look at FinalBuilder as a stand-alone desktop build tool, or FinalBuilder Server as the same, but server-based.

Marc

Answer 3

We are starting to use FinalBuilder.

Answer 4

I've used all the build tools mentioned and none are even close to being as good as rake. Below is everything you will need to build your solution and run your unit(mbunit) tests. If you are using a different unit testing framework, they are easy to swap. The only part you'll need to worry about is tying this into a build server (super easy) and getting it to pull from whatever source control you are using (also not difficult).

Here is all you need to do to get each of your projects buildings.

1. Install ruby (one click installer here)
2. Add a file called "Rakefile.rb" to your solution
3. Copy the template from below
4. Go to your solution from the command line, type "rake" and hit enter

Here is the template that will get you started.

DOT_NET_PATH = "C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v3.5/"

SOLUTION = "YOUR_SOLUTION_HERE.sln"

CONFIG = "Debug"

MBUNIT_PATH = "C:/pROGRAMS/Gallio/Gallio.Echo.exe"

TEST_NAME = "NAME_OF_TEST_PROJECT_HERE"

task :default => ["build:all"]

namespace :build do

task :all => [:compile, :test]

desc "Use MSBuild to build the solution: '#{SOLUTION}'"

task :compile do

sh "#{DOT_NET_PATH}msbuild.exe /p:Configuration=#{CONFIG} #{SOLUTION}"

end

desc "Use Gallio to run the MbUnit tests"

task :test => [:compile] do

sh "#{MBUNIT_PATH} /no-echo-results test/#{TEST_NAME}/bin/Debug/#{TEST_NAME}.dll"

end

end

Answer 5

I think a lot of build tools are built into Visual Studio Team Server (VSTS). It handles not only your source code protection, but you can have a "build machine". NAnt is cool not only for builds, but other scripting tasks.

Neal