Some things change how you fundamentally program. Automation is one of those things. It is what will save you from wasting your weekend stepping through tedious and error-prone processes like regression testing (unit, integration, performance, functional, etc.), builds, deployment, or even documentation. Automation is one of those buzzwords we all know our projects should have (like "performance," "security," "maintainability," etc...), but the question is how? Microsoft gave us a huge answer with .NET 2.0's MSBuild - its new build platform with a process-oriented scripting language. It can revolutionize not just how you build, but also how you test, deploy, and automate many of your development processes. The problem with these scripts, like the problem with anything else, is that the,y must be maintained. Perhaps the best way to maintain them is to keep them refactored - something that MSBuild makes very easy.
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