Newbie Questions

[Paul]

I and my team converted a small application to VB.NET. This is the
first VB.NET programming we have done. We had some issues that I would
like to be handled better. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

1. We had DLL issues. We had a base DLL for database access. This
DLL was used by all other VB.NET projects. We also had some other base
DLLs (all created in VB.NET). Frequently, when compiling a project we
would get a warning message that certain DLLs were not the correct
version. For example, the DB DLL would be changed. Another DLL would
be compiled using the new version of the DB DLL, but a second would
not. I would compile a project and get the warning message because
different DLLs were expecting different versions of the DB DLL. I
understand that a final compile of all the code would resolve the
warning, but could cause other problems.

2. We are using Visual Source Safe. I'm not sure whether VSS should
store the DLLs for each project. For example, in the DB DLL VB.NET
project the DB.DLL file was stored. In another project that uses the
DB DLL also stores the DB.DLL in it's VSS project. So every time I
recompiled the DB DLL, I had to manually move it to the BIN directory
of the project I was working on.

SHORT VERSION:

 

[Chris Dunaway]

1. We had DLL issues. We had a base DLL for database access. This
DLL was used by all other VB.NET projects. We also had some other base
DLLs (all created in VB.NET). Frequently, when compiling a project we
would get a warning message that certain DLLs were not the correct
version. For example, the DB DLL would be changed. Another DLL would

This is more than likely caused by having the version number
autoincrement. In the AssemblyInfo.vb file the version number is
typically set to something like this: 1.0.*. The * meaning that the
version will be incremented at each compile. If you are using direct
..dll references instead of project references, this could be the cause
of the problem. You should always use project references where
possible. Check out the link at the end of this post for MS guidelines
on team development. Especially chapters 3, 4, and 5.

2. We are using Visual Source Safe. I'm not sure whether VSS should
store the DLLs for each project. For example, in the DB DLL VB.NET

We normally don't store the executable (.exe, .dll, etc) in source safe
except when a release version is built.

SHORT VERSION:
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I need a good reference document for the best way to manage and deploy
VB.NET applications that have multiple projects (and DLLs). I would
like some URL that has some good information or a good book that I can
buy.

Check out this link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/tdlg_rm.asp