Here is an interesting bit about database projects that I forgot, database projects (.dbp) are formatted much like VB6 and earlier project files. I was hoping I could using an XSLT script to modify the project and roll it into a nant script capable of pulling each file from source control and concatenating the scripts into one file. But after looking at the problem and the tools we have, I'll take a different approach.
A while back, I wrote a visual studio plugin that grabs database scripts and pulls them into one large file. My initial approach was grabbing the associated Project object out of the plugin support library and iterate the project items. However, I found that database projects aren't treated the same as others and I wasn't able to traverse the project tree. The alternate approach I came up with was using a seperate XML document that allows us to fully control the ordering of the file placement and works quite well. I'll be taking this approach, translating it over to a nant script and run it that way.
I started blogging my nant experiences yesterday without explaining the larger issue surrounding the need for nant. As our company is growing, we now have a need for daily builds. Some will argue that daily builds should be an automatic practice all along, but I've always found that daily builds require a pulling customer - QA. Without a pulling customer, the regimented process gets overlooked when other needs are calling which is typical in a small company. And the regimented process has little benefit when noone is QA'ing the code.
We are formalizing a QA team that is responsible for grabbing our issues and testing them with a 1-2 day turnaround target. They will be the ones demanding the build and have each of us developers shooting for a targeted build each day. I anticipate this change will bring along a lot of needed change and improve our processes immensly. I've been on a number of large projects previously where a daily build pulls the team together and reduces the product release cycle while improving code quality. I'm looking forward to the change.
I've decided first to automate our database script generation - this is the script we use to upgrade an existing database. The reason for targeting this part of the build first is that it takes the most time. We'll use a physically seperate machine (from development) for building the scripts and .MSIs.
I'll continue blogging the Nant progress as I go.