Other than Michael's excellent offerings for DotNetNuke development, here is another great article from Rick Strahl that is required reading for any ASP.NET 2.0 web development.

Compilation and Deployment in ASP.NET 2.0
http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/32624

All very good points. I think the biggest issue for DotNetNuke developers is the decision to support Visual Web Developer Express Edition. There are two very different crowds involved, the hobbyist and the professional developer. Since the lowest common denominator is Express Edition, the professionals have to use what works that way.

I use VS2005 Team Edition for Ssftware Developers and I have no trouble using MSBuild with DotNetNuke or other projects. I even prefer the new project model over VS2003. What I don't know is if my solutions will work with the Express Edition.

I just installed the VS2005 SP1 Beta looking for productivity gains for myself and my clients. Again what I don't know is if solutions and projects that I build with it are going to be able to work with Express Edition. I do know that WAP and WSP are going to be supported directly in VS2005 SP1, but DotNetNuke will not be converted to WAP.

Overall I find the entire issue to be confusing as hell. Why can't Microsoft just make it work for everyone?

I don't find it surprising at all that MS is giving away a product like VWD.  What surprises me is how long it took for them to do it.  We've all heard the song before: a group of MS product engineers come up with an idea, they pitch it to Bill.  "He likes it, he likes it"... they celebrate and get to work.  Sometime later they go to the marketing guys and say, "Hey, we built this great product.  Help us us sell it".  MS Marketing makes a big fuss through the media.  Some product gets sold.  A competitor comes in.  The cycle begins again.

Now Gates has all but publicly stated he's betting the farm on .NET.  This means applications need to be developed in .NET, and to run those .NET apps, you need a Windows OS (for the most part).  Well, for the first time in my recollection, the product teams went to the marketing guys first.  This time they said, "Hey, we need to sell more copies of VisualStudio, and we need to gain more marketshare with .NET apps and the Windows OS."  The marketing guys replied, "Finally, you ask us first.  What you need to do is give something away."  "What?!?", they exclaim, "Bill will have our heads."  "Simmer down, just hear us out."

Now, the truth is MS doesn't really make their money selling packaged copies of VisualStudio, Windows or any other product.  MS makes their money through corporate licensing.  As a corporate user, I can't recall the last time I opened a shrinkwrapped box of software or manually entered a license key.  This is all handled through licensing agreements.  All you ever get is a piece of paper with the Genuine sticker on it and either a set of discs (if you're lucky) or a download link.  The truth is, if the casual developer, or even small business, never paid for any MS software, the MS bottom line probably wouldn't notice.  So, back to the marketing strategy.  How about if you give away some tools targeted to students, 20 somethings and even small businesses.  These people start developing .NET apps for personal and occasionally business use.  The imporant thing is they are NOT developing Java or other competing apps.  Furthermore, have you ever tried to add 3rd party components to your WVD toolbox?  Try adding your Telerik, ComponentOne or Infragistics controls to VWD.  Wow, it works!  You see these companies DO rely on every single user to pay for a licensed copy.  As a developer paying out of your own pocket, if you don't have to pay for the IDE, maybe you can save up and spend a few hundred bucks on a component suite.  In that regard, kudos to MS.  They could have really pissed off the component developers here, but they didn't.  MS realizes how vital those companies are to their success and they kept that in mind when releasing VWD.

So, how does MS make money.  Consider the following conversation:

OK, so I ad libbed those last few lines, but I think that's pretty close to the way the story goes.  And yes, I do think they should have named XBox 360, XBox HD.  Why not, everything else HD is selling right now (not they've had trouble selling 360s).  If they really wanted to play the hot item naming game, they should have named it the iXBox HD and included a docking station so you can plug in your iPod and use your own songs instead of the ones that come with the games.  Surely... I digress.

The point is, VWD and all the other Express products are part of a marketing campaign... and a good one at that.  Humans are creatures of habit.  If young developers get used to using Express products, when they get in a situation where money isn't the motivating factor, they are more likely to select the full, paid version of the same product. 

"I'm 26 years old, fresh out of grad school and have been developing good, quality software using free MS tools since I was 16.  Now you want me to use a Java IDE?  No way!  Give me VisualStudio 2015 Team Edition for Software Architects!" 

MS wants nothing more than to have that conversation over and over and over again.  That's called gaining marketshare and is more valuable than any shrinkwrapped box of software they could ever sell.  I'm glad to see this is the path MS has decided to follow.  I only with they had done it a dozen or so years ago when I entered the workforce and had to use Notepad because the small company I worked for couldn't afford expensive tools.  Now I'm part of a big company, and we can afford things like MSDN licenses.  We're not stupid and know a lot of what we spend goes to offset the free offerings.  That's OK.  We also know when young developers enter the workforce, they'll already be seasoned developers and can contribute to OUR bottom line immediately.  That's a win all the way around!