Team work questions

[Sammy]

I have a development team working on a web application. I have a development
server with VS 2003 installed. Each developer checks out a copy of the
source code via source safe and edits/compiles/debugs it on their machine.
However, we always need to debug this code on the server itself, since, for
example we have external devices (mobiles) that call web services, that are
only exposed via the server.

I do not want to give server access to the developers. How can they debug?
Or should they not at all? If they should, can they remote debug from their
machines, or should they still access the server via Terminal Services
limited accounts?

Another thing is: where should the build script be installed typically? On
the development server itself? Should the developers have access to it so
that it can pull the latest checked in work from source safe and
compile/build it on the server?

Thank you,
Sammy

 

[Karl Seguin]

Sammy:
I think you really need to read this great article
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/Tdlg_rm.asp?frame=true
which is specifically about team development using source safe (chapters 3
and 4 are prime)

That guide, along with most people here I presume, will tell you that
developers should locally work on their machines and check the code in.
This allows them to easily debug and do whatever is needed, while
maintaining a separate/controlled repository. If you can't go this route,
do a google search for "ASP.Net Remote Debugging" but I've always seen it as
more of a pain than it's worth compared tothe alternative (dev on their own
box).

As for the build question, the document goes over this.

Karl

 

[Chris Newby]

Sammy, Karl's right about the article. I found it very helpful as well.

As for the remote debugging, I just wanted to add that the few times I've
tried it with my team the results have generally been unacceptable. Besides
performance and a couple of potential networking problems you may or may not
have depending on your infrastructure, we found that only one developer can
usefully debug the aspnet_wp.exe process at a time. For example, if you have
a developer that has attached his or her debugger to the remote server's
aspnet process and set a break point, the whole server appears to be hanging
to everyone else.

Of course it's very possible we weren't doing something right, I never
really investigated!

For debugging our servers, we generally rely on the framework's built in
tracing and logging features which honestly can be even more helpful at
times than creating a debugging session. Somtimes anyway