Best build strategy?

Hi!

I am looking for a good build strategy for a large solution ( a solution with over 20 sub projects ).

The build process will be use tools like:

NAnt, NUnit, NDoc, CruiseControls.net.

What are you build strategy in large project… for example at Microsoft intern?

When do you increment the build number? For all project in the solution at the same time or for each project?

How do you develop the solution with Visual Studio? ( developing a solution with over 20 sub project isn’t so easy in Visual Studio… )

Please tell me your experiences in large projects.

Regards,

gicio

Best build strategy?

CTRL+SHIFT+B

- Steve

Wow.  Lots of questions in there.  Here's a quick and dirty:

This is how I do it - and is by no means authoritavive:

Build numbers:
Major.Minor.Build

Incriment Major on complete redesigns (like once every 2 years or whatever. Rare)

Inciment Minor on significant releases (large swaths of functionality updated)

Inciment Build on each build that goes up to our qa/production servers.

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How we handle 15+ projects:

We have a libray sln that hold all our business components.  When they compile and their dll's are checked in (checkout sln, rebuild sln, check in sln) we have vss set up to share those dlls into a components dir. 

Developers will then do a get latest on the compoents dir (getting the latest dll's) and then run the web poject.  the web project has diret dll references to that components dir, not project references to dll's.

This approach makes debugging dll's a little harder, but the trade off is something we have found acceptable.

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We are in the process of creating a build process using Nant.  I've fallen in love with it BTW.

And how did it Microsoft?

Hello World

need some information

Regards,

gicio

I am curious to know if you are planning on using VS.NET 2003 or VS.NET 2005?  As the tools and processes available to you would be different.

Thanks!