TFS Branches and Folders Best Practice

Question

I have my TFS 2010 structure as follows:

ProjectCollectionA
       ..trunk
            ....Dev (this is a branch) 
                  ...Website1(these are folders)
                  ...Website2

            ....Release(this is a branch)
                  ...Website1(these are folders)
                  ...Website2

For whatever reason, I have dev and release as Branches and Website1, Website2 as Folders. My question is should I be having dev and release as folders and Website1 and Website2 as branches? Does that make more sense? What is the best practice here? Any advantages or disadvantages going one way or other? Thanks for the help

Answer 1

There's a very comprehensive guide here from the ALM Rangers that explains the different branching practices in TFS.

If Website 1 and Website 2 are related applications within the same overall solution (not VS solution) or if there are any dependencies between the two Websites, then this (IMO) is the best approach. If they are two completely unrelated projects with isolated code bases, I would seperate it into two TFS Projects.

It's hard to decide on a correct branching pattern for someone without knowing the full ins and outs of thier business practices. What we do here, might not work for you (Actually, what we do we probably shouldn't).

Answer 2

I agree with DaveShaw that you should have a look at the Branching/merging guide on CodePlex.

According to your question with the extra comment, I would suggest use folders for making your tree in source control explorer more clear, but use branches for each application/solution. In your current situation (if for example you need to build an extra feature for one of your applications) you have to create a new branch for all your solutions, where you only (in this example) want to change one solution. Using a/multiple branch(es) per solution will give you more freedom.