Best way to organize large project

  • Thread starter Thread starter craig via DotNetMonster.com
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craig via DotNetMonster.com

I am working on rewriting a Fox 7 ODBC app. and teaching myself .NET in the
process. So far I have over 130 of the screens rewritten, but debug
performance is terrible. It would be much better if I had each screen as
seperate solutions, but then I'm constantly having to remove and readd
references which became way too much hassel. So currently my solution has
the 130+ projects included.

But when I start debugging it rebuilds EVERYTHING! eventhough I haven't
changed a single thing!! I can play a hand of Solitaire before it finally
starts executing. Not finding this situation very productive at all!!! Is
there an option that can be set to only rebuild changed modules? Or has the
size of my application exceeded the capability of .NET? It sure is looking
that way.

Or how should an application of this size be organized? The two ways I've
discovered each have serious flaws and I'm seriously wondering about the
feasibility of developing large application in .NET.
 
Um, each 'screen' should be in one application. I don't see why you'd
want forms spread out in different assemblies, unless you are planning
on making a generic one that can be used in other applications at some
point.

Your business logic however should be in seperate assembly. Check out
Expert C# 2005 Business Objects for a good framework on which to build
your business objects. Tehre's also a VB.Net version of teh book; same
framework and features, just written in a different language.

Also, don't worry too much about debug performance; it will be
notically slower then release. Switch it to release; if you're still
having perf problems, you can look at them then.

Oh, you may want to look at your workstation too; if its been a few
years since you upgraded, that may be worthwile as well.
 
Well, my machine isn't brand new but it isn't shabby either. I have a 2.3 g
processor and 1gb of ram. If this isn't enough horsepower for develop in .
net ................

As far as not worry about debug performance... Well, I'm gonna. If something
happens and I say how the heck did I get into this bit of code, set a break
point, stop debugging and restart. I have between 5 and 10 minutes to wait.
This is just not acceptable. By the time I get back to where I wanted to
look at things, I've forgotten what I wanted to look at.

I think I understand what you are suggesting about one application. I will
give that a look. The reason I had everything seperated was because once I
get this a bit farther along, there will be multiple programmers working on
it and I was trying to set up a multi-developer enviroment so that one person
could work on a screen and not be blocked by someone else who was working on
a different screen. Which, seems to me, will be exactly what will happen if
I move everything into one project.
 
Well, its not your workstation then.

You shouldn't be having such peformance problems.. there must be
something else going on. Certainly a form per project is not the way
to go.

You should be able to have multiple developers working within a single
project and not have them block each other. A good source control
server will be helpful here, but even VSS allows mutiple users to check
out the same file (you have to enable this option though). I recommend
SourceGears Vault, its been working well for me.
 
Thanks a bunch. I'll reorganize and see how things go. My boss has been
very resistant to any kind of version control software, but I've used them
before and have been expecting to have to use one. If this increases the
performance, then it will give me a good argument as to why we'll have to go
that way.
 
Right-Click your solution
Goto Properties
Goto Configuration Properties- Configuration

Then Uncheck(Build) for all the project you don't want want to Build.

Steve.
 
Ok, I've reorganized and each form is no longer a seperate project. Things
are MUCH faster now! Thanks for the suggestion.

Craig
 
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