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I have always used the Visual Studio Dependencies option to ensure that, for example, when building my C++ projects, any dependent LIB or DLL projects are also built. However, I keep hearing people mention ‘references’ and wondered, with VS 2010 on the horizon, I should be changing how I do this.
Are there any benefits to using references to dependencies or is the former a .NET feature only? I am currently using VS2008.
I prefer using references since these were introduced for unmanaged C++ in VS 2005. The difference (in unmanaged C++ developer’s perspective) is that reference is stored in .vcproj file, while project dependencies are stored in .sln file.
This difference means that when you reuse your project in different solutions (and I often do) you don’t need to redefine the inter-project relationships again.
Visual Studio is smart enough not to depend gravely on the paths of the projects when it establishes the reference relationship.