Creating a conditional NuGet package
.net, c#, nuget, powershell, vb.net
Solution
Assuming the user is not modifying the appstart code you can just put the appstart code in a compiled assembly, that would avoid the vb.net vs. c#.
I'm also not sure why you need to use the PostApplicationStart vs. the PreApplicationStart. This is not an inherent difference between Web Site vs. Web application, you might want to look deeper into this. It's probably an ordering thing in the implementation of your specific Web Site.
Problem
I have created a custom assembly in C# which is going to be used by a number of different existing systems, there is quite a lot of configuration involved in getting this assembly working with our systems so to make things easier, we decided to create a local NuGet Server and roll the assembly into a NuGet package. This worked perfectly well and we were able to add all the dependencies the assembly requires and add a web.config.transform file to merge in any additional nodes required. This is where we hit our first stumbling block... Firstly as I mentioned previously the assembly is written in C#, the application we are test running is written in VB.Net. As we are using `log4net` in the assembly we have implemented `WebActivatorEx` to ensure this was initialised on application startup, meaning we have an `AppStart` class which sits `App_Start` folder. However, after referring to the `WebActivatorEx` documentation we noticed that if the project is a website as apposed to a web application the `AppStart` class must sit inside the `App_Code` folder not the `App_Start` folder and must also use the `PostApplicationStartMethod` and not the `PreApplicationStartMethod`. Also as the `AppStart` class is written in C# and will sit inside a VB.Net project we need this converting to VB only if the target project is VB to avoid messing around with more configuration files which is something we are trying to minimise. In short, the main questions here are: Can our NuGet package have some sort of conditional behaviour, i.e. if its a VB.Net project add the `AppStart` class in VB.Net and if its C#, leave it as C#. If the project is a website place this `AppStart` class in the `App_Code` folder and use the `PostApplicationStartMethod`, if the project is a web application place the `AppStart` class in the `App_Start` folder and use the `PreApplicationStartMethod`. Is this even the correct approach in terms of initialising log4net without re-writing the target application's global.asax I'm aware you can run PowerShell commands inside the NuGet package, is there anyway of using this to work out whether the project is C# || VB or am I complicating things and should I simply create 4 different NuGet packages for each and every scenario but this seems plain wrong. I will await and welcome any suggestions or comments.