What is the point of command line C# compilation?

Question

I always use Visual Studio to do this, and yet even MSDN repeatedly refers to command line approaches in compilation and deployment scenarios.

This guy wants to do only command line, and is lauded for being hardcore, but I fail to see the point of doing it this way. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Continuous build and automation, as others have said, are very good reasons to use command line tools. If you want a reliable deployment process, you must have an automated way to build and deploy. If your deployment process consists of starting Visual Studio, loading the project, compiling, then manually copying the output to the deployment directory, then you will be plagued with deployment issues. You will end up with partial builds, old versions, forgetting some critical step, etc.

I find the IDE essential for development and debugging. But I've found that the only way to reliably build, test, and deploy is to automate the process.

Answer 2

Automatic build tools like continuous integration servers typically use command line C# compilers. Spend some time in the Linux world and you'll learn the value of the command line.

Answer 3

One big use is that you can run it automatically as part of a larger one-click build process. It's kind of difficult (or at least, needlessly complicated) to have an automated script that says "Open Visual Studio, open solution, press F6" or whatever your build key is.

Answer 4

For one thing, if you load a project into a continuous integration server, you will need to use the command line approach for automated builds. I'm guessing this is the most common use of it, but I'm sure there are others.