Is it worth learning to use MSBuild?

Question

I simply wondered whether people thought it was worth learning to use the MSBuild syntax in order to customise the build process for a .net project, or whether it is really not

Answer 1

Building from the command line with MSBuild is relatively easy to learn. Start by opening a Visual Studio Command Prompt, and running msbuild /?. Just read through the help once and then decide later if you want to learn more details.

Writing project files is a bit more complicated. Most people don't need to learn it, because you can do most things in Visual Studio. However, it's also quite powerful for certain problems.

I have in the past used MSBuild as scripting language, combined with lots of custom tasks. MSBuild has fantastic logging support + built-in dependency management. However, it's not an easy language to learn. PowerShell is a much better choice.