Is it ok to have different solution files in TFS for projects?

Question

Currently we have a solution with ProjA, ProjB, ProjC, SetupA, SetupB

SetupA and SetupB are not used very often and cost quiet some time to build. And usually only 1 developer needs to use these setup projects.

So is it ok to create another solution only include ProjA, ProjB, ProjC in source control? this does not look quite right to me, but I do not know what is a better way to do it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You don't have to consider your version control system if using multiple solutions since only the sln files are referencing the project files but not vice versa. I've used multiple solution files in a couple of customer projects with several source control systems - TFS, Subversion, Clear Case ... The downside of multiple solutions is maintenance - new or deleted projects must be potentially added/removed in several solutions, if you forget it, it may break the build.

An alternative could be usage of the free Funnel extensions, different load filters can be used for different tasks within one single solution file. Only projects contained in the particular filter are loaded and compiled. Load filters are stored in plain files and can be shared in the team using a version control system.

Answer 2

It depends on the source control: with Git support for Visual Studio, and the Visual Studio Tools for Git, you can use git submodule.

That is define a parent git repo which will encapsulate ProjA, ProjB and ProjC.

However, submodules aren't fully integrated in the Visual Studio Git integration yet: see "issue 790028".
So git command-line remains handy.