When to use a build tool?

Question

A beginner question, bear with me: I'm just wondering under what circumstances one should use a build tool like nant or msbuild? I'm working on a medium sized application (.net 3.0), every developer is doing his work and builds on his machine checking his code changes into the repository as he goes. Once we're all done, I'll get all the code from the repository, make a clean build on my machine and we deploy the binaries. Just out of curiosity, where comes the build tool in?

Answer 1

The short answer is always.

Each developer should be building using the build script before checking code in. The people building the release should be using the build script to build the release. Your buildbots should be using the build script to build and test the code that's been checked in.

Doing this allows all the developers, testers and buildbots to have a consistent, repeatable build. After all, The F5 Key Is Not a Build Process.

Answer 2

It sounds like you are using an IDE to do your build. It essentially is a build tool; you are already using one. You should switch tools when the one you are using becomes more of a problem than a solution.