build tools

Sam Gentile's asking about VS.NET vs NAnt for building projects:

"What I would like to know is people's specific pressure points; where they either ran up aggainst VS.NET project limitations or needed to do something more. Any inputs most appreciated!" [Sam Gentile]

I'm not fully versed with VS.NET's build capabilities but there a few areas where I rely on NAnt. One example is for conditionally changing files per build target. I might want to change the source files depending on if it's a debug or release build: controlling strong name key files, config settings, etc. Another area is controlling build versions. You can have NAnt fire off a process that increments the versions systematically. I remember John Lam implementing something similar: http://www.iunknown.com/Weblog/NAntBuildNumbersandVisual.html