Is NAnt still being actively developed

If you are quite happy with MSBuild, then I would stick with MSBuild. This may be one of those cases where the tool you learn first is the one you will prefer. I started with NAnt and can't quite get used to MSBuild. I'm sure they will both be around for quite some time.

There are some fundamental differences between the two, probably best highlighted by this conversation between some NAnt fans and a Microsoftie.

Interestingly, Jeremy Miller asked the exact opposite question on his blog last year.

The rules are:

• a single star (*) matches zero or more characters within a path name
• a double star (**) matches zero or more characters across directory levels
• a question mark (?) matches exactly one character within a path name

Another way to think about it is double star (**) matches slash (/) but single star (*) does not.

Let's say you have the files:

1. bar.txt
2. src/bar.c
3. src/baz.c
4. src/test/bartest.c

Then the patterns:

• *.c             matches nothing (there are no .c files in the current directory)
• src/*.c     matches 2 and 3
• */*.c         matches 2 and 3 (because * only matches one level)
• **/*.c       matches 2, 3, and 4 (because ** matches any number of levels)
• bar.*         matches 1
• **/bar.*   matches 1 and 2
• **/bar*.* matches 1, 2, and 4
• src/ba?.c matches 2 and 3