Monday, November 02, 2009

dependency repository for visual studio / nant / msbuild / whatever

Dear LazyWeb,

For Java builds, you've got both Ivy and Maven as mechanisms to publish / discover inter-project dependencies.

Are there similar tools for C# or C++? Particularly within Visual Studio?

Googling has turned up vague hints about running Ivy from within a NAnt script. And a Visual Studio Dependency Manager on Codeplex that sounds like it might fit the bill, but doesn't have much documentation to judge.

We've got a bunch of thirdparty dependencies, as well as inhouse dependencies -- individual projects might change multiple times a day, or only every year. It'd be nice to have a Ivy-like repository that we can publish new releases into.

Ideally I'd like something integrated with Visual Studio to make our developers happy, as well as something easily scriptable/controllable to make our CM people happy.