Build system thoughts

[Kevin Greiner]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 6:29 PM, Bill Barry <after.fallout at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > * What are you trying to gain by using branches instead of clones?
> One of the big pain points for using clones is configuration when
> working on webapps and windows services. Every time we need to work in a
> different directory we need to open up IIS and switch the directory (or
> perhaps sets of virtual directories, we have one app that uses 3 vdirs,
> one for the app and 2 for webservices the app uses). We also have to
> remove and reregister a windows service every time we switch from one
> clone to another.


Part of your build or clone script could be the creation or modification of
NTFS junctions that point the relevant vdir directory to the current folder.
There are some things you have to careful about though. For instance,
deleting the junction can delete the underlying referenced directories as
well. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx for
details.

Junctions might also work for the windows service too. We have a similar
webservice architecture and we've used conditional compilation to start our
"service code" in a dos window on debug builds, thus avoiding the need for
service registration. If you're using .NET it's quite easy. Contact me
directly for details if needed.
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