My Favorite Tool
Today is Windows Developer Tools Day.
To celebrate the tools that make Windows developers lives easier –and the people who’ve created them–Friday, Jan. 19th is unilaterally declared to be Windows Developer Tools Day. It’s a spontaneous effort to draw attention to the growing number of free and open source software (FOSS) tools that support developers who work on the Windows platform.
My favorite tool is NAnt! I use the crap out of this tool. I use it to write more than build scripts. I use it to get stuff done. When it does not do what I need it to do or I think it should be easier I write an extension to help me get the job done. It is very easy to write new NAnt tasks.
I have NAnt integrated into my IDE, VS.NET, with the external tools configuration and a key combo mapped to execute the command, Shift+Alt+N. This allows me to quickly edit and execute scripts. I also use CI Factory on most projects I am involved in. This magnifies how useful NAnt is in just getting stuff done for me. CI Factory includes many componetized NAnt targets and properties that are relevant to the solution you have open. This means that I can quickly call on those properties and targets to do work for me. As a build master I can quickly test and experiment with parts of the build scripts before publishing them to the build server.
CI Factory is the tool that I wrote about for Windows Developer Power Tools: 12.7 Easing the Burden of Implementing a Continuous Integration Process with CI Factory (pg 637-649).
In a recent post I questioned NAnt’s rate of progress and mused about committing to maintaining a private branch for CI Factory. I have since worked with Gert Driesen, a NAnt project Admin, to become a developer on the NAnt project. I hope to make a significant impact and give back to a tool that has done so much for me.