Managing references across a development team

[Trevor Hunter]

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody can point me in the right direction to find a
method or tool to help us manage a central location for common dll's
that our development team uses on a regular basis.

The functionality I'm looking for is something similar to the concept of
a "shared" GAC where developers can point Visual Studio to when they
need a reference to a DLL. They would have the facility of choosing to
always use the latest version when building the project, or force a
specific version. I just want to take away the manual labour required
for the developer to manage references in their projects.

We're using VS Pro, not Team System.

Any help is much appreciated.

Trev.

 

[Michael Nemtsev]

Hello Trevor,

TH> I was wondering if anybody can point me in the right direction to
TH> find a method or tool to help us manage a central location for
TH> common dll's that our development team uses on a regular basis.
TH> The functionality I'm looking for is something similar to the
TH> concept of a "shared" GAC where developers can point Visual Studio
TH> to when they need a reference to a DLL. They would have the facility
TH> of choosing to always use the latest version when building the
TH> project,

Why not to keep you common components in the CVS/VSS and share it to the
all project where you just add reference to it?

TH> or force a specific version. I just want to take away the
TH> manual labour required for the developer to manage references in
TH> their projects.

This could be set by params in config, where you just specify requred version

---
WBR,
Michael Nemtsev :: blog: http://spaces.msn.com/laflour

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid." (c) Friedrich Nietzsch

 

[Trevor Hunter]

This could be set by params in config, where you just specify requred
version

Yes, I know that these can be set up in a configuration, but what I'm
looking for is some way to have a central location of all libraries that
we use, so all developers can automatically get the latest version when
they build instead of having to manually copy the referenced libraries
to their development machine.

I guess its more a question of development environment setup rather than
project specific.

We're (forced to) use CVS for source control and it's a nightmare to
ensure all developers have the same local directory hierarchy, so I'm
looking for a better solution for the compiled references. I've
considered a shared network drive, but there's no way to ensure each
developer mapped the same drive letter. The ideal thing would be a
server that we can add references to in our projects - kinda like a web
reference, but for normal dll's that will be copied locally.

Thanks for the suggestion... I'll keep looking.

 

[Brendan Green]

When we do out development, we just create a Dependencies folder in VSS (the
same would apply to CVS) that is at the same level as the solution. Any
references added to the project are done via this Dependencies folder.
This allows any developer to do a "get latest version" and be able to build
the solutions straight away.

Alternatively, I believe that references can be added using a UNC path.
That way, you could store your references on a shared drive, but not worry
about the drive mapping.
However, I don't believe that this is a good solution - what's the point of
source control if the references aren't part of it?

 

[Trevor Hunter]

When we do out development, we just create a Dependencies folder in VSS (the
same would apply to CVS) that is at the same level as the solution.

This is currently what we do, but it's becoming a pain to manage (mostly
due to CVS). If we copy the references into the solution folder, they
have to be manually updated each time the dependency is rebuilt. If we
share the dependencies across projects, we loose the ability to specify
which version to use as it will always use the latest.

Alternatively, I believe that references can be added using a UNC path.

Yeah, I thought of that too, but if I'm going that far, I'd rather have
something with a few more features (e.g. Ability to specify version to
any level - e.g. 1.2.3.4, 1.2.*, 1.* or * for latest etc.).

Maybe I'm wishing for the stars, but I just wanted to see what's out there.