(Originally written for System Engineering and Management in 02/2020)
Introduction
In the System Engineering course of WS1920, I took the opportunity to look into automating the build process of a Windows desktop application. Specifically, the application in question is built in C#, targeting .NET Framework 4.0 and using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for the user interface. The git repository is hosted on GitLab.com, making this environment the primary focus of this research.
The main objective of this project was to set up a low cost and maintenance build pipeline for a Windows desktop app, but also to gain a better understanding of GitLab’s CI/CD system as well as Microsoft’s .NET world, both of which I had dealt with before, but never in great depth. Ideally, the end result would come without any financial cost, so that any private person, without a budget to spend on a build server or other payed services, would be able to use it.