working with .NET projects and front-end developers

Question

We have multiple projects in .NET where we have 2 copies of it, the source code and the published version. When a front-end developer comes in he normally works in the published version as they don't normally use Visual Studio, so we end up with lots of changes in the published version that we need to copy back onto the source code version. This leads to errors as people forget to copy the changes.

Does anyone have similar problems? Any tips?

Thanks

Answer 1

Since you're already using version control, you can setup SVN hooks that email the back-end developers whenever front-end developers change files. Probably not the best approach though...

Another approach that you can take is to create 2 separate source-code versions of your project. One source-code version would contain all of your developer specific .cs files, including base page and control classes, custom controls, etc. The second project would be an asp.net project. The asp.net project would have only presentation files - aspx, ascx, master files, etc. Front-end developers would work on the source code version of the asp.net project. They would have the pub version of the binaries project.

With this solution, back-end developers must develop custom controls for the front-end developers to work with. Front-end developers are always working on the latest source version of the asp.net project. Typically you'll find that back-end developers wind up creating a completely custom asp.net tag library for the front-end developers to work with.

Answer 2

There are only one correct answer: The front-end developers must be able to commit their changes to TFS.

They don't have to install entire Visual Studio to get access to TFS, read more here: Standalone GUI client for TFS 2010 Source Control