Pros and Cons - publishing vs Copying

[Elmo Watson]

Since I came from the HTML world many years ago - I am just in the habit of
copying/FTPing all my ASP.Net websites to the remote server

However, I have a friend who says that Publishing is the only way to go and
it's the 'MS' way to do it

I've had nothing but trouble trying to do this, many times, with different
errors popping up, either in publishing, building before publishing, or
running after publishing...

What are any pros and cons either way?

 

[Cowboy \(Gregory A. Beamer\)]

Publishing precompiles the pages. You can still xcopy or FTP the resulting
bits. If you "publish", you will get rid of all source files, which is a
wise maneuver.

Build >> Publish
Choose directory locally
FTP or copy from that directory to live server

 

[Elmo Watson]

We're talking about a secured, shared hosting environment here, so - - -
Just curious - why is it a wise maneuver, to remove the source code?