How many projects in a Visual Studio Solution ?

[Romain TAILLANDIER]

Hello group,

Most of my solutions have between 1 and 5 projects.
I have a solution with about 35 projects (and still growing).

How many project have you in your solutions ?
What are the problems (and solutions) you encounter with big
solutions ?

Thank you.
Romain TAILLANDIER

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Most of my solutions have between 1 and 5 projects.
I have a solution with about 35 projects (and still growing).

How big are those projects?

How many project have you in your solutions ?
What are the problems (and solutions) you encounter with big
solutions ?

I just find it annoying if I have to deal with 20 projects each of
which consists of a single file.

I'm comfortable with up to about 10 projects - after that it becomes a
bit painful. ReSharper helps due to its ability to find types easily,
admittedly.

Of course, it all depends on the application...

 

[Romain TAILLANDIER]

Jon,

This 36 project solution is a 9 month (and growing) full time project
for me.
It a big program, with a system of pluggin, it come on PC and WinCE
Devices.

Most of sources files of the device are common with PC files, and are
cross compiled.

DEVICES
I have 4 projects (respectively about 30, 5, 1, 1 .cs files) for the
standard device part.
I have 3 other projects (with about 5 .cs files each) for Devices
pluggins.
I have 3 more projects for specific devices which few overrides
precedent files.

PC
I have 7 projects (respectively about 50, 12, 5, 5, 5, 1,1)
I have 5 other projects (with about 5 .cs files each) for PC Pluggins

OBFUSCATION
I have 2 obfuscation project (one for Pc, one for Devices)

INSTALLATION
I have 1 install MSI Project
I have 4 one cs file project to mae after install actions.
I have 6 CAB for devices programs and pluggins.
I have a few more other project for install pluggins.

it make something like 40k lines of code (estimation)

In my opinion,
- i can't group any project in one (i have allready grouped anything
that can be)
- i can't make a (some) new separated solution for pluggins (that
would be great !), because of obfuscation problems caused by my
pluggin system.


I there anyone here who have as big solution as this one ?
Have you got tricks for dealing with this ?


Romain TAILALNDIER.

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

This 36 project solution is a 9 month (and growing) full time project
for me.
It a big program, with a system of pluggin, it come on PC and WinCE
Devices.

Most of sources files of the device are common with PC files, and are
cross compiled.

I there anyone here who have as big solution as this one ?
Have you got tricks for dealing with this ?

Well, do you really need the obfuscation and installation projects in
the same solution as the others? Saving 13 projects could make a
significant difference...

 

[Romain TAILLANDIER]

Yes, i think about it for a while too. but I am not sure.
I am quite sure i also can separate the pluggin from the main
solution, using the obfuscation map (output of obfuscation), but i
will have to make a new obfusctaion project for each plugins. and I am
not sure that il will work.

When time would come, after releasing the current version, i think i
would try that. Thank for the help

I know you are a device MVP. Have you got help for cross compiling ?
I have no problem with that generally, but sometimes ...
Since i have a lot of project, i do not compile all at each time. So
when work on PC, i do not compile on device, and vice versa. When go
back to compile for the other plateform, it does not compile anymore.
And when it appends (very occasionally) i don't know how to correct
the source because it should be the same, and i use no plateform
specific code, and there is no visible reason to not compile (of
course it should be have one i can't see). Any idea ?

I remark that i have to close the common files and reopen, when they
have #if (just a few F... files, where i am not be able to remove the
#if)
Sometimes i clean up the project, sometimes, i restart visual studio.
I am note sure what action help or not. it seems not reproductible.
Just that : sometimes it happends !

Thank you
Romain TAILLANDIER

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Yes, i think about it for a while too. but I am not sure.
I am quite sure i also can separate the pluggin from the main
solution, using the obfuscation map (output of obfuscation), but i
will have to make a new obfusctaion project for each plugins. and I am
not sure that il will work.

When time would come, after releasing the current version, i think i
would try that. Thank for the help

I know you are a device MVP. Have you got help for cross compiling ?

I'm afraid I'm not - I'm just C#. I did some Compact Framework work a
long time ago, but haven't touched it for ages. Probably worth asking
in the CF group.

I have no problem with that generally, but sometimes ...
Since i have a lot of project, i do not compile all at each time. So
when work on PC, i do not compile on device, and vice versa. When go
back to compile for the other plateform, it does not compile anymore.
And when it appends (very occasionally) i don't know how to correct
the source because it should be the same, and i use no plateform
specific code, and there is no visible reason to not compile (of
course it should be have one i can't see). Any idea ?

Sounds very odd...