Client/Server Application + Solutions?

[dpaulat]

I am sort of new to the whole solution scene in Visual Studio.

Scenario: I am about to develop a client/server application
2 Options:

• Single Solution, Client Project, Server Project
• Client Solution, Server Solution

Being these are going to be run on completely separate machines... which is going to be my best option, considering I want strong version control between the two?

If my best option here is to use separate solutions, where would I find myself wanting to use a single solution option?

 

[jmcilhinney]

The use of a single solution is most useful when you have one project references another, because you can actually reference a project instead of a compiled assembly. In your case there's every chance that you will have common libraries referenced by both applications so, in that case, a single solution might be beneficial. If not then you could go either way but, given that they are designed to work together, a single solution makes sense to me.

 

[JohnH]

The single solution also has the benefit of multiple simultaneous startup projects when debugging. It's nice to have both server and client, and perhaps a common library, built and started at same time when you press 'play'. Also build order/dependency can be set. Later it's easy to separate them, or in some cases choose build and startup independently.