Visual Studio Best Practices

Tue, 06/16/2009 - 08:24
jqueen 
Joined: 02/05/2008
User offline. Last seen 2 weeks 2 days ago.

Hi,

I am developing a CloudIQ application in Visual Studio. To make testing the application easier, I have a post-build event that automatically increments the version number and calls fabric_pkg to make the .fabric file.

This works, but I had to spend a good amount of time figuring out how to call fabric_pkg, where the XML files should go, and how to make both Debug and Release builds work. The best strategy I have found so far is to arrange for the output files (executables, DLLs) and the CloudIQ XML files to all get copied to the bin\Debug or bin\Release folder, then call fabric_pkg from there.

Is this how the experienced Appistry developers do things, or do they have a separate script to perform the packaging? To me, this is part of the build process, but it is slightly annoying that the version number increment is changing one of the source files for every build.

Basically, I would love to hear any tips about developing CloudIQ applications within the Visual Studio environment. Thanks!

Jeremy

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Tue, 06/16/2009 - 11:15
#1
rich  Appistry employee
Joined: 12/21/2007
User offline. Last seen 5 weeks 23 hours ago.

jqueeen,

One quick thought, if you just want to make sure it packages after your changes, you wouldn't have to increment the version. You could wait to increment the version until you actually deploy the application. Creating a script to increment the version, package, and deploy the application would make this quick and easy.

Hope this helps
Rich

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Wed, 06/17/2009 - 08:16
#2
jqueen 
Joined: 02/05/2008
User offline. Last seen 2 weeks 2 days ago.

Rich,

Thanks for the reply. Are you suggesting I store the version number in a third location and increment that using the same script that repackages the application? That seems like that would work.

My end goal is to have a set of scripts and such that will allow a new CloudIQ Visual Studio project to get up and running quickly. Maybe I will create a Visual Studio template, but I have never done that before and do not know if it can do what I want.

Jeremy

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Wed, 06/17/2009 - 12:23
#3
rich  Appistry employee
Joined: 12/21/2007
User offline. Last seen 5 weeks 23 hours ago.

jqueen,

I was just replying to your comment about how you thought it was annoying to have the version incremented every time you build. If the point of packaging your application every time you build was to verify it still packages, you don't have to increment the version. Then create a script that can increment the version, package, and deploy the application. Run this script only when you are ready to deploy your application, then the version will only get incremented on deployment.

Rich

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