[MonoDevelop] Moving to MSBuild

["Andrés G. Aragoneses"]

Thanks for your answers guys. I was a bit concerned before because in my 
previous job we used the solution folders feature of VS but I was never 
totally convinced about its advantages. Furthermore we ended stablishing 
the rule of making solution folders coincide with physical folders, 
because otherwise the solution would become a mess, and anyway there was 
no automatic method for checking this, so sometimes it became a mess 
when somebody didn't respect the rule. (So I ended thinking that nested 
solutions was the *solution* to this problem, but now I see your point 
about external references that are not in the GAC.)

I'm wondering if a feature like this (to force solution folders be 
physical folders) would be welcomed in MD (haven't tried yet SVN so, 
sorry if this is actually the way it works).

Regards,

	Andres


Michael Hutchinson wrote:
> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Michael Hutchinson
> <m.j.hutchinson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> - Does MSBuild contain an standard (different than the .sln format,
>>> which you said was not part of it) for solutions? It's not clear to me
>>> yet why this type of files are not XML-based yet...
>> Good question; I'm not completely sure. I think that the concept of a
>> "solution" isn't really required for a build system, and is a
>> convenience for IDEs. It's basically just a list of "projects" that
>> the IDE opens in one go. It also provides an environement for
>> resolving project references BUT this is any because the C#/VB
>> references resolution tasks do it this way. MSBuild's aware of it but
>> I don't think it's really a core feature as such.
>>
>> Think of them sort of like xml Makefiles. There's no such thing as a
>> Makefile "solution" :-)
> 
> On further investigation, I found they have something called a
> "traversal project", which they apparently generate from sln files and
> cache on disc:
> 
> http://blogs.msdn.com/msbuild/archive/2007/04/13/recursion-and-itemgroups-inside-targets.aspx
> http://blogs.infosupport.com/raimondb/archive/2006/05/22/msbuildemit.aspx
> http://www.vsou.com/Overriding-the-ToolsVersion-for-Your-Projects-in-Team-Build_20080325_23988/
> 
> Also, msbuild files can build a set of solutions:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/aaronhallberg/archive/2008/04/28/solution-specific-output-directories-in-visual-studio-2008-orcas.aspx
>