Project Linker: Synchronization Tool -- I have read this and still don't understand what the point of it actually is.
Oh, and I tagged this with prismv2 because it seems to have some association to it.
I don't often get what Patterns+Practices does but this one seems straight forward. It is explicitly useful for an app that you want to create for both WPF and Silverlight. You have to have separate projects, the assembly references are very different. Which is painful, any change you make to one project you also have to make to the other. The tool makes it automatic.
Related
In most .NET project I can use folder to organise the code files. In C++, I can't, but filters end up playing the same role. However, in F# with Visual Studio 2010, I can't. Every code file is shown directly in the project dir. Why is this feature not available?
And what is the optimal strategy for organizing a project with a lot of files?
Actually, you can add folders to F# projects but it's not supported directly through Visual Studio (you have to edit the project file yourself): http://fsprojectextender.codeplex.com/ (edit: old link was broken, updated to F# Project Extender home page which has links to the original blog posts which were moved) (which I found in this answer).
I do this myself, but it is cumbersome and you end up avoiding it until keeping sanity really demands it. I think the feature simply slipped, or perhaps there wasn't as much a culture for folder organization with the F# designers in the first place. You can see in the F# source code that they favor huge source files with no directories, with separate projects as an organization boundary.
I imagine the F# project template could be modified to support this, and it is certainly something I'd like to see happen. At the same time the linear compilation order F# enforces causes your code to be somewhat self-organized, and so folder grouping plays a less significant role.
Manually editing the .fsproj file as described in Stephen's answer is one option (and I used it when I wanted to organize one larger project).
However, you have to be a bit careful and I think you cannot add new files to the folders (creating a file by hand and then adding an existing file works). However, if you like to keep things organized (like I do), then it should work for you.
Additionally, there is also a tool called F# Project Extender that should make things a bit easier for you . I have not tried it yet, but it looks like it supports adding folders (and perhaps other useful things). See for example this blog post by the project author.
I've inherited some C99 code that I'm planing on reusing in a C++-centric solution. Unfortunately, even Microsoft's latest compiler has virtually no support for non-trivial C99 features.
The code in question has been tested to death and I'd rather not go through the trouble of rewriting it in C++. This means that in order for me to reuse the code verbatim I'll have to rely on a conforming 3rd-party compiler.
After looking around, it appears that the nicest way for me to integrate this code is by adding a "Makefile Project" to my solution. Only one problem. It seems like it is now my responsibility to keep the "Build Command Line" property synchronized with the files that I add to the project through Visual Studio.
At first glance, I couldn't find a way to get a list of files in my project through the usual Visual Studio $()-style macros. I could always write a shell script that would enumerate *.c files in my source tree and pass their paths to the 3rd-party compiler. However, I kind of expected that Visual Studio would do at least that part of the work for me since it already has this information in the relevant *.vc[x]proj file.
It is very unlikely that I'll need to add any new source files to this project, but still, manual synchronization (i.e., without a script) of this sort seems rather fragile to me.
What are my options besides writing a helper script?
From Hans Passant:
"Makefile project" means what it says,
there needs to be another 'agent'
that's responsible for the
dependencies. Like a make file. Rule
files can help you select another
build tool but that's kinda broken
right now in VS2010. Leverage the
original tool that built this C99
code, run it from the makefile
project.
Currently I have 4 solutions that are independent projects, however there is quite a bit of duplicated code when it comes to a few areas of the applications.
At the moment it is simply a few forms and their associated code.
When I want to change or improve something, I have to copy and paste to all relevant projects.
I looked at creating a new project within one of the solutions for the .dll/class library, but I felt that this was incorrect. (Please say if I am wrong).
As it is a component for all the applications, I decided to create a new solution for the .dll/class library and am looking at moving the shared code over to that - but, having never gone down this route before, what are my options from here?
Am I able to then include this solution within the others if I need to make a simple change and have it updated in all the projects or instead, should I always be working on the shared component in a separate instance of Visual Studio, outside of the applications using it?
That's exactly the right way to handle this situation.
You can include projects in multiple solutions by right-clicking the solution and selecting Add Existing Project...
Any changes you then make will appear in all solutions. The only problem this leads to is that it's possible to break one solution from another. This is where automated builds on commit to source control come into their own.
Put shared codes in separate Solution/Project as Class Library,
In post build event of shared projects copy dll's to a specific directory,
Add shared dll's from this directory to other projects/solutions
By doing this each time you build your consumer projects, they will use latest dll's automatically.
Moving the common code into a separate shared assembly is an excellent option.
One thing to think about is to keep your common business logic or business object type code separate from UI related code like custom controls - if you need to then have two common assemblies. This is more work initially, but makes things way easier further down the track when you need to make UI changes or change the control suite you are using.
I see developers frequently developing against a solution containing all the projects (27) in a system. This raises problems of build duration (5 minutes), performance of Visual Studio (such as intellisense latency), plus it doesn't force developer's to think about project dependencies (until they get a circular reference issue).
Is it a good idea to break down a solution like this into smaller solutions that are compilable and testable independent of the "mother" solution? Are there any potential pitfalls with this approach?
Let me restate your questions:
Is it a good idea to break down a solution like this into smaller solutions
The MSDN article you linked makes a quite clear statement:
Important Unless you have very good reasons to use a multi-solution model, you should avoid this and adopt either a single solution model, or in larger systems, a partitioned single solution model. These are simpler to work with and offer a number of significant advantages over the multi-solution model, which are discussed in the following sections.
Moreover, the article recommends that you always have a single "master" solution file in your build process.
Are there any potential pitfalls with this approach?
You will have to deal with the following issues (which actually can be quite hard to do, same source as the above quote):
The multi-solution model suffers from
the following disadvantages:
You are forced to use file references when you need to reference
an assembly generated by a project in
a separate solution. These (unlike
project references) do not
automatically set up build
dependencies. This means that you must
address the issue of solution build
order within the system build script.
While this can be managed, it adds
extra complexity to the build process.
You are also forced to reference a specific configuration build of a
DLL (for example, the Release or Debug
version). Project references
automatically manage this and
reference the currently active
configuration in Visual Studio .NET.
When you work with single solutions, you can get the latest code
(perhaps in other projects) developed
by other team members to perform local
integration testing. You can confirm
that nothing breaks before you check
your code back into VSS ready for the
next system build. In a multi-solution
system this is much harder to do,
because you can test your solution
against other solutions only by using
the results of the previous system
build.
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate has several tools to help you better understand and manage dependencies in existing code:
Dependency graphs and Architecture Explorer
Sequence diagrams
Layer diagrams and validation
For more info, see Exploring Existing Code. The Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack provides dependency graph support for C++ and C code.
We have a solution of ~250 projects.
It is okay, after installing a patch for Visual Studio 2005 for dealing fast with extremely large solutions [TODO add link].
We also have smaller solutions for teams with selection of their favorite projects, but every project added has also to be added to the master solution, and many people prefer to work with it.
We reprogrammed F7 shortcut (build) to build the startup project rather than the whole solution. That's better.
Solution folders seem to address the problem of finding things well.
Dependencies are only added to top-level projects (EXEs and DLLs) because, when you have static libraries, if A is dependency of B and B is dependency of C, A might often not need to be dependency of C (in order to make things compile and run correctly) and this way, circullar dependencies are OK for compiler (although very bad for mental health).
I support having fewer libraries, even to the extent of having one library named "library". I see no significant advantage of optimizing process memory footprint by bringing "only what it needs", and the linker should do it anyway on object file level.
The only time I really see a need for multiple solutions is functional isolation. The required libs for a windows service may be different than for a web site. Each solution should be optimized to produce a single executable or web site, IMO. It enhances separation of concern and makes it easy to rebuild a functional piece of the application without building everything else along with it.
It certainly has its advantages and disadvantages anyway breaking a solution into multiple projects helps you find what you looking for easly i.e if you are looking for something about reporting you go to the reporting project. it also allows big teams to split the work in such a way that nobody do something to break someone else's code ...
This raises problems of build duration
you can avoid that by only building the projects that you modified and let the CI server do the entire build
Intellisense performance should be quite a bit better in VS2010 compared to VS2008. Also, why would you need to rebuild the whole solution all the time? That would only happen if you change something near the root of the dependency tree, otherwise you just build the project you're currently working on.
I've always found it helpful to have everything in one solution because I could navigate the whole code base easily.
Is it a good idea to break down a solution like this into smaller solutions that are compilable and testable independent of the "mother" solution? Are there any potential pitfalls with this approach?
Yes it is a good idea because:
You don't want VS to slow down on a solution with dozens of VS projects.
It can be interesting to only focus on a portion of the code, this enforce the notion of code locality which is a good thing.
But the important first thing to struggle for is to have as few VS projects/assemblies as possible. My company published two free two white books that explain the pro/cons of using assemblies/VS project/namespaces to partition a large code base.
Partitioning code base through .NET assemblies and Visual Studio projects (8 pages)
Defining .NET Components with Namespaces (7 pages)
The first white-book explains also that VS is pretty slow when working with a solution with dozens of projects, and shows tricks about how to remedy to this slowness.
Is there a pre build action or some compiler switch that we can add?
I have just too many projects in our solution at the moment. I want to add new modules and compile them into separate assemblies.I am looking for options where I can avoid adding new projects for each assembly.
I am using Visual Studio 2005.
Also, It will be worthwhile to know if 2008 has better features over this space.
edit #1: There are two development teams working on this project and we want to cut the modules broadly into two verticals and keep the assemblies separate so that the ongoing patches ( post release ) do not overlap with the functionality in two verticals and also the testing footprint is minimized.
Currently the solution has about 8 projects and we need to setup the structure for the second team to start development.
I do not want to end up adding 5 or 6
new projects in the solution but
rather create folders in the existing
projects so separate code for the new
team or some easy way.
No, Visual Studio is still "one project per assembly". Do you really need to have that many different assemblies?
You may be able to write your own build rules which create multiple assemblies from a single project, but I suspect it's going to lead to a world of pain where Visual Studio gets very confused.
If you could give us more details about why you want lots of assemblies, we may be able to help you come up with a different solution.
EDIT: Having read your updated question, it sounds like you would possibly be better off just working off two branches in source control, and merging into the trunk (and updating from the trunk) appropriately. Alternatively, if the two teams really are working on independent parts of the code, maybe separate projects really is the best solution.
One of the problems (IMO) with Visual Studio is that the files in the projects are listed explicitly - which means that the project files become big merge bottlenecks. I prefer the Eclipse model where any source file under a source path is implicitly included in the build (unless you explicitly exclude it).
Neither Visual Studio 2005 nor 2008 lets you create multi-file assemblies. However, you can run the C# compiler at the command line with the '/addmodule:ModuleName' switch and it'll do what you want. For general details on command line usage of csc see this article. For description of the /addmodule switch see this one.
That said, however, you're most-likely taking a non-optimal approach here. In normal situations you should not have to want to create multi-file assemblies just because you have too many projects. Give more details of your general problem so that people can offer suggestions regarding that.
I'd heed the advice you've been given thus far--if you find yourself asking such questions, there's probably a deeper design issue that's being overlooked--but if you really must do what you're suggesting be done, you have several options. You can hack the project file to allow you to compile files into separate assemblies: the project file is an msbuild file, so there's a lot you can do with it. Also, you can simply use an msbuild file for building your projects and solutions. Or you can use a different build system entirely--NAnt is one example.
The likely problem with these suggestions is that they won't be feasible for your work environment. It's no good to start hacking away at project files that other people on your team use, or to just decide that this or that solution is going to be built using your custom msbuild file. There are many good reasons to use something like a single custom msbuild file, or NAnt, to build your projects, but it's always the wrong decision if it's not made with input from everyone the decision affects.