Beige Sunshine

Update: Don’t forget to check out Part 2 and Part 3.

In previous posts I have mentioned that I think that there might be a better way to automate builds than NAnt. I also mentioned that I had looked at a few of them and been mostly underwhelmed. I’ve spent a large amount of time building a process for builds that works well for me and none of them seemed to erase my pains.

I also mentioned that I would be working on some items that may even drive some content to this blog, among other things. Today, I introduce the fruits of my labour.

Please note that this is NOT recommended for any sort of production environment. It is currently at best a way to try out Rake on .Net projects.

What is rubicant?

rubicant is my own personal set of tasks that sit on top of rake, a rubyish interpretation of make. I’ve used ruby for some scripting in the past, and also used rake in a rails app that I developed. I felt that the combination of both would alleviate some of the pains that I (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here) feel when I use NAnt.

I was admittedly scared to even try building my own set of tasks, and actually didn’t even know where to start. I kept rolling the idea around. One day I was going to start doing it now. Then the next I wasn’t. As a father of young children my spare time is very limited and very few and far between, especially for something that would demand so much of it.

And then the I started coming across others experimenting with exactly what I was talking about. First it was a post by Dave Laribee, as well as another post in his comments. And now as I read over them again, I’m seeing that there’s more people feeling like I do. I started to google and found some great posts by Jay Fields and to a lesser extent one by Martin Fowler.

Anyway, in my looking it seemed like no one had actually put out a reusable library that anyone could just pick up and automatically compile a project within 5 minutes.

And thus, with some much needed inspiration from the above sources, rubicant was born.

What isn’t rubicant?

Well written for one thing. Take a look at my tests and they’re enough to make someone blow a gasket (I kid, I LOVE his twitter rants) I started writing them thinking I knew what I was doing and let me clear something up for you. At the time, I had a greatly misguided view on BDD/Specification testing. Either way, it’s still got my code covered and has helped to drive out some of the design, especially when loading framework information.

Another thing it is not is a complete solution. I had 4 goals in functionality that I wanted. They were:

1. Build C# code
2. Test C# code (with MBUnit)
3. Copy selected files in a meaningful hierarchy
4. Template expansion using configatron to allow for easy configuration swapping.

Why rubicant?

First off, automated builds are the only thing that I feel I truly have a grasp on. I feel comfortable enough in myself and my process that I could come up with something useful. I don’t think of myself as a guru, but I do know that I have a set of build scripts at work that are robust and involved while trying to stay (somewhat simple). In other words, I don’t consider myself a guru, but I do feel I have a grasp on the subject.

I was also feeling too much pain with NAnt. As well, I didn’t feel that any of the other solutions out there really felt like what I was looking for. I was also looking for a learning project in ruby. I wanted to try driving out a design via testing using ruby. A lot of things. Either way, I felt like I wanted to do something for myself, but that also might provide some sort of benefit to the community, even if it just ended up as a failed attempt. In a sentence: I wanted to try and provide SOMETHING back to a community that I feel has given me so much.

Even if this ends in failure, it’s been exactly the experience that I’ve wanted thus far, and though I’m sure I’m in for some rough waters ahead, I think that it will continue to drive me to learn, improve and better myself. Okay, so there is definitely some selfishness there, but hopefully you can forgive me in the name of Continuous Improvement, even if it’s my own.

How do I get it? How do I use it?

Well, if you want to get it, you can go to the project site on google code and download the source. There are instructions there on how to install it. As for how to use it… stay tuned for a sample project and build file. Hopefully very soon.

Update: Don’t forget to check out Part 2 and Part 3.