What is the point of MSBUILD/NANT if you are just going to write procedural code? Isn't Powershell better?

Question

I am currently writing a deployment script in MSBUILD, and after downloading several extensions, I have found myself looking at the build file and thinking:

What was the point in doing this in MSBUILD?

This deployment script is completely procedural: stop website, delete folder, copy files, change permissions, start website, etc. There is no fancy dependency stuff which I assume is the natural domain of tools like MSBUILD, NANT and MAKE.

The only reason I can see to use MSBUILD is that it comes as standard, and its easy to put the extensions into your SVN so builds 'just work'.

The problem with it is I have to spend all this time working out how to do 'basic stuff' in MSBUILD (locating extensions, working out syntax) which would be trivial (although more verbose) in Powershell or even command line.

So to sum up: Are procedural tasks suited to MSBUILD or are you better of using something like Powershell?

Answer 1

Check out PSAKE and see what you think.

http://www.jameskovacs.com/blog/IntroducingPsake.aspx http://powerscripting.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/episode-56-james-kovacs-talks-about-psake/ http://code.google.com/p/psake/

Experiment! Enjoy! Engage!

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT] Windows Management Partner Architect