Team Development Considerations

You might have an established team development model in your organization. When you upgrade solutions and projects to the latest version of Microsoft® Visual Studio, here are some things to consider to ensure applications load and build correctly.

Visual Studio 2005 supports Web development based on ASP.NET v2.0. As part of the process to migrate projects to the latest version, Visual Studio removes the Web project file, modifies the contents of key source files (making them incompatible with prior versions), requires write permissions for artifacts, and reorganizes source files by moving them to a new folder underneath the project. When migrated to Visual Studio 2005, the Web artifacts are no longer compatible with Visual Studio .NET 2003.

All of these activities impact a team’s source control model. For example, if a developer is working on file versions of a Visual Studio .NET 2003 Web project in a branch, and then attempts to merge file changes with the main branch after the project there has been upgraded to Visual Studio 2005, the versions will be incompatible at merge time.

Assess the impact to team development before upgrading Web projects to Visual Studio 2005. The first step to migrate Web projects is choosing a team development model for the team to follow after the migration is complete. There are two recommended team development models to choose from: parallel development and traditional development.

Parallel Development

Parallel development includes multiple-stream (in UCM ClearCase®) and branch (in base ClearCase) development workflows. Parallel development is a team development model where each user creates (or is assigned) a separate stream or branch to perform development activities. When the user completes development activities, the user merges changes to the shared stream or main branch.

For more information on UCM and base ClearCase, see the IBM Rational® ClearCase Information Center.

Traditional Development

Traditional development includes single-stream (in UCM ClearCase) or main branch (in base ClearCase) development. Traditional development is a team development model where every user works on the same stream or branch to perform development activities. Artifacts are typically checked out as unreserved and once development activities are complete, work is checked-in to the main branch, resolving merge conflicts, if any, in the process. Both base ClearCase and UCM support this model.

For more information on main branch development or multiple-stream development, see the IBM Rational ClearCase Information Center.

Related concepts
Web Development Mapping Styles
Related tasks
Migrating Web Projects and Solutions