Is there a dynamic language based .NET build tool?

Question

I might be starting a new project in .NET soon, and would prefer not to use an XML-based build tool like Nant or MSBuild. I like Rake, but I'm thinking it may be better to have something based on a .NET dynamic language (such as Boo), similar in spirit to gant or BuildR for Java. Is there such a thing for .NET? If not, what do you recommend?

Answer 1

There is always the Boo Build System or "Boobs" for short (yes it's a silly name) and looks very similar to Rake.

Ayende has written about this previously in Introducing the Boobs Build System and shows a nice example of the syntax.

Boo is written in C# and has a really nifty compiler that can be modified at runtime for doing all sorts of domain specific language (DSL) tricks.

Answer 2

You should really check out FinalBuilder. I evaluated it quite a bit last year and really liked it although in the end we deployed TFS2008 and so we're using TeamBuild to get a lot of the integration goodness. But really FinalBuilder had TONs of prebuilt build activities, great support for lots of environments and tools, and a nice IDE for designing it all.