Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

• Use project references whenever possible.
• Use file references only where necessary.
• Use Copy Local = True for project and file references.
For more information, see “Source Control Guidelines” in this guide.
Automated Dependency Tracking
Each time you build your local project, the build system compares the date and time of
the referenced assembly file with the working copy on your development workstation. If
the referenced assembly is more recent, the new version is copied to the local folder. One
of the benefits of this approach is that a project reference established by a developer does
not lock the assembly dynamic-link library (DLL) on the server and does not interfere in
any way with the build process.
Referencing Web Services
In simpler systems where all of the projects for the system are contained within the same
team project, all developers end up with local working copies of all Web services because
they are defined by Visual Studio projects within the team project. When you open a
solution from source control for the first time, all projects (including any Web services)
are installed locally. Similarly, if a Web service is added to the solution by another
developer, you install the Web service the next time you refresh your solution from
source control. In this scenario, there is no need to publish Web services on a central Web
server within your team environment.
For larger systems, Web services can be published through Internet Information Server
(IIS) on a centrally accessed Web server and not all developers need to locally install the
Web service. Instead developers can access the Web service from their client projects,
although you need to reference the Web service appropriately as discussed below.
For more information, see “Source Control Guidelines” and “Source Control Practices”
in this guide.
Use Dynamic URLs When Referencing Web Services
If you want to call a Web service, you must first add a Web reference to your project.
This generates a proxy class through which you interact with the Web service. The proxy
code initially contains a static Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the Web service, for
example http://localhost or http://SomeWebServer.
Important: For Web services in your current solution that execute on your computer,
always use http://localhost rather than http://MyComputerName to ensure the reference
remains valid on all computers.
The static URL that is embedded within the proxy is usually not the URL that you require
in either the production or test environment. Typically, the required URL varies as your