Dealing with multiple versions of a single c# dll (plugin)

Question

I have a challenge similar to creating-my-own-plug-ins-for-my-own-project-in-c# and late-loading-a-net-plugin-dll, with the added headache of being able to specify a version to use. My current idea is to simply use console apps, with folders named by version. I'd then find the folder and load the console app by known name, using Process.

I'd like to avoid having to write out and read in text, which is the only real way I can see for a console app to talk to my 'control' windows forms app. Using dlls seems like a possibility, but I haven't done much with dynamic loading before and it seems rather messy either way.

I've had a quick look at the Managed Extensibility Framework, but it's still under development, and aiming for .Net 4.0, which I might be able to look at, although I need this solution relatively quickly.

Any other ideas out there for accessing a specific version?

Answer 1

In the end I just used a well-known folder structure to contain different versions of console apps.

No, it's not clean, and probably not the best way to do it. However, I don't have control over the console apps/dlls, and this works without being too much to explain to the researchers I work with. They know research, C# is just a tool.