Which projects do you include in your solutions

Question

How do you commonly lay out your solutions in Visual Studio? Recently, I've kept the BLL, DAL and presentation in different classes and planned to add a test solution as I learn TDD. However, after recently watching a video from Rob Conery and viewing a project from an external contractor, I noticed a theme of multiple projects in the solution.

The projects included in the solution were:

• Infrastructure
• Model
• Web
• Tests
• SQL Repository

Is this something new or a design technique suggested for MVC? Can anybody tell me more about this design?

Answer 1

First, you need to understand Rob's coding habits. He uses an MVC-esque approach to development (if not pure MVC) and uses his ORM SubSonic.

The use of MVC is the reason for the "Model" class, since SubSonic 2.1 contains Migrations, he is using the SQL Repository for those migrations, so that he can version his DB.

Tests and Web are self-explanatory, which only leaves the Infrastructure, and your guess is as good as mine, though it could be the "Controller" of the MVC pattern.

It all depends on the pattern that you're using, your own preferences for separation of concerns, and your comfort level developing multiple projects at once.