NAnt2

If you are looking for a reliable tool to help you automate the development process of .NET-based software, then changes are you heard of NAnt before. Unfortunately, the tool that stopped receiving updates more than a decade ago. Despite this, it seems that many developers still use it and it provides the desired results, especially as it performs well in the Microsoft Visual Studio environment.

NAnt2 is essentially an enhanced fork of the tool that has been updated to meet modern requirements. Moreover, it is intended to act as a drop-in replacement for the original app, so you don’t have to worry about errors and inconsistencies.

One of the reasons why this tool is special steams from the fact that it provides a simpler way to define and manage complex building processes. Whether you are dealing with generating code, tests, debugging, documentation or other tasks involving building and deploying .NET-based software, it can all be managed more conveniently via an XML file. The tool provides an excellent way to automate the entire development process.

The tool can be especially beneficial in large projects that entails working with multiple libraries and repositories. All the operations involved, from compile the code to the final product, can be defined in an XML file that specifies the dependencies between the tasks. As you would expect, the tasks are executed in the ordered specified.

Automating operations in order also means a lot of time saved that your team would otherwise spend to doing it manually. Not to mention, that having to do meticulous and lengthy tasks manually is prone to errors. Overall, NAnt2 can help your team work with a standardized way of managing the build process and would simplify things for large or complex projects.