Chapter 4. Solutions and Projects

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding Solutions

• Getting Comfortable with Projects

Solutions and projects are the containers Visual Studio uses to house and organize the code that you write within the IDE. Solutions are virtual containers; they group and apply properties across one or more projects. Projects are both virtual and physical in purpose. Besides functioning as organizational units for your code, they also map one to one with compiler targets. Put another way, Visual Studio turns projects into compiled code. Each project will result in the creation of a .NET component (such as a DLL or an EXE file).

Note

Web projects are compiled, but an assembly won't be generated until they are published. We cover more on the topic of web projects in Chapter 13, "Developing Smart Clients."

In this chapter, we will cover the roles of solutions and projects in the development process. We'll see how to create solutions and projects, examine their physical attributes, and discuss ways to best leverage their features.