tfs2013 share project across many projects

Question

I have a few (3) core projects I want to share across many solutions (12+).

So, say I have 12 websites and they use some shared back end core code (in this case I'm not talking about shared js, css or views - I'm talking about business objects, entity stuff, etc.).

I need to be able to identify which site has which version of the shared code in dev, test, prod, etc. so a developer can get the website code and get the right version of the shared code to develop or patch the website.

And then the MS build server needs to know which version of the shared code to get for the deployment.

To solve this, I'm seeing people branch that core code - which seems absurd to do 12+ times. (I do expect to branch the core code sometimes for things like hot fixes and long running projects.)

I'm also seeing people copy DLLs of the core code and check those in.

I would think I would list the dependencies for my solutions based on TFS label names somewhere so developers can easily get the apps running with the right code and given a tfs label the build server can get the code for the website and the proper version of the core code. I'm using TFS & VS 2013 at the moment too, so there's that.

So, is there a way to do this that's straightforward, supportable/scale-able and intuitive? Thanks - Peter

Answer 1

Labels in TFS is very limited. For example once the label created you couldn't change and update it. If one of your core projects updated, did you need to create a new label for it. If you did and use the new label for one of your solution. However you found there are some bugs in this update, you need a newer update of your core project to fix the bug. Then a newer label created, you need to manually maintain the dependencies which seems not to be an easy job.

Moreover how to list the dependencies for your solutions based on TFS label names? TFS don't have this built-in option, seems the only way is store it in a txt or someother files and check in the source control. Every time the developer open a website application need to check it first and get label from server to their workspace and work on it.

Usually the purpose of sharing code between projects is reducing maintenance. There’s two main code sharing paths: source and binary. The difference between them you could take a look at this blog: Code Sharing in Team Foundation Server

Sharing code between products is a primary cause of quality erosion and elevated bug counts. I would recommend you to build separately and sharing binary output through NuGet which use preferable.

Also take a look below similar questions:

• Sharing code between solutions in TFS
• TFS 2010 Branch Across Team Projects - Best Practices