Best practice for moving C# .NET project files across servers

Question

What is the best strategy for making changes to a specific file within a C# .NET project and a DEV server and then moving that file to a different environment, say server B? I noticed it always wants me to recompile on the destination server and I figured I was doing something wrong because I didn't think I would have to (plus the server isn't in-house so it is really slow and time consuming).

Any suggestions or strategies you or your company uses would be appreciated.

Answer 1

• Make sure you are using a Web Application project where it compiles a DLL, not web site which uses loose code files.
• You could use a source code versioning system like Subversion.

Answer 2

use a source control program for source files (like SubVersion) and Cruise Control for binaries built out of those files...

Answer 3

For web application development my experience has been:

Developers have a development environment on their local machines that is attached to source control A DEV web server with shares to the projects created allows developers to COPY files to the web application folders manually. A TEST web server where MSI installations ONLY are used to distribute the changes for UAT A PROD web server where MSI installations ONLY are used to distribute the UAT approved MSI

The size of projects I am involved with usually makes build scripts overkill, most times a project is being worked on it is built many times for debugging etc.