Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build (Developer Reference) by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

The build process when code gets assembled to see how and how well it works is a critical step in software development. Developers had few options for customizing the build process before Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, but the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) enables developers to customize each step during a build. MSBuild is extensible and uses an XML file to describe each step, allowing the build master or developer to easily change and augment how projects are built. This book offers hands-on guidance for customizing MSBuild, and provides a cookbook of examples on Web deployment, automated releases, and other essential topics. It also covers Visual Studio Team Foundation Build, the build engine in Visual Studio Team System.

Paperback

First published January 7, 2009

Reviews

[Daniel Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should really be a must read for anyone doing any work with c# or visual basic. You don't really have to understand a lot of it, but having a better idea of how projects get built is a wonderful feeling.

[Marcin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was useful. Good background on the subject and although some parts were too simplistic overall the coverage of the key aspects is good. I might keep using it for a while as a handy reference.