Hack the Build: An Introduction

Jomo Fisher--I'm a developer on the MSBuild team and I own a big chunk of the build rules that get run when you build your C# or VB application. If you wanted to find me, you could draw a line west from Jeff Callahan's office (https://blogs.msdn.com/jeffcal) and draw a line south from Alex Kipman's office (https://blogs.msdn.com/akipman). Those lines cross at my desk on the fifth floor of a building in Redmond. If you came for a visit, you might find Jeff or Alex in my office spiritedly discussing some MSBuild feature (or bug).

The last few years working on MSBuild have been a little bit of a dream come true for me. Before starting with Microsoft I’d always liked Visual Studio—it was easy to use and mostly obedient if I needed to do something unusual. Really, it was almost always obedient except for Build. I couldn’t tell exactly what Build was doing and, even if I guessed correctly, I couldn’t change it. What I wanted was a way to make it do the build that *I* wanted.

Cut to future. I’ve had the privilege of working with some great people and helping make my own wish come true. VS Whidbey Beta 1 is out the door and the build is open for everyone. With some work, even extreme changes are possible. Don’t like the way we call the compiler? Change it. Don’t like the order in which we locate referenced assemblies? Rearrange it. Want to use a whole different compiler? Great, roll up your sleeves.

We’re going to dig into the Microsoft build rules and see how things work. We’re going to take them apart and put them back together better. I’m calling my blog Hack the Build.

[Update October 2, 2004--I posted a sample that shows how to target the .NET Framework 1.1 using MSBuild]

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