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64

answers:

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I have been thinking about setting up some sort of library for all our internally developed software at my organisation. I would like collect any ideas the good SO folk may have on this topic.

I figure, what is the point in instilling into developers the benefits of writing reusable code, if on the next project the first thing developers do is file -> new due to a lack of knowledge of what code is already out there to be reused.

As an added benefit, I think that just by having a library like this would encourage developers to think more in terms of reusability when writing code

I would like to keep this library as simple as possible, perhaps my only two requirements being:

  • Search facility
  • Usable for many types of components: assemblies, web services, etc

I see the basic information required on each asset/component to be:

  • Name & version
  • Description / purpose
  • Dependencies

Would you record any more information?

What would be the best platform for this i.e., wiki, forum, etc?

What would make a software library like this successful vs unsuccessful?

All ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Edit:

Found these similar questions after posting:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1475316/how-do-you-ensure-code-is-reused-correctly

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/529739/how-do-you-foster-the-use-of-shared-components-in-your-organization

+4  A: 
Dave Quick
+1 thanks for the ideas. We do have svn as our code repository. Got me thinking though, whether code documentation + some post build publishing script would get things rolling off nicely. Like your comment about having a contact listed
Teto