This chapter covered several topics concerning assemblies and deployment:
Before you deploy an application, you should configure it as a Release build or a custom build suitable for deployment. When built, a .NET assembly may be copied anywhere and executed. This is referred to as XCopy deployment.
When .NET assemblies are executed, the CLR normally performs JIT compilation on the code. An option that bypasses JIT compilation is to use the NGen.exe tool to precompile the assembly. NGen.exe may provide speed benefits during startup, but an application should be benchmarked to determine whether NGen.exe or JIT compilation should be used. The results might be surprising.
Assemblies may be deployed privately or shared in the GAC. When deployed in the GAC, assembly versioning avoids the problems of the past with DLL hell. Although XCopy deployment proves the independence and self-describing capabilities of .NET assemblies, applications of any size require a professional installer package for proper deployment. The InstallShield Express setup creation program ships with C#Builder. InstallShield can be used to create setup programs that include the .NET Framework redistributables.
