How should I reference assemblies from another solution?

Question

I have two scenarios:

1. There is a Framework project for the company, and for all projects we are going to use this framework.

2. There is a custom Framework project which is specific for a client and only some people in the company will ever need to use this DLL.

Both frameworks are stored in separated solutions on TFS.

How should one use the references for other projects? Should I put the both assemblies on GAC or something? Should I copy the output assembly manually? What is recommended, why and how I use it?

Answer 1

Custom framework

Copy the output assembly manually for the custom project unless you can include it's source directly in the solution.

Shared Framework

I would use nuget instead of GAC any time since you get rid of any versioning problems or having to create a separate installation package for framework (since you GAC)

It's easy to create a private nuget server. Simply create a new MVC3 project and install a the nuget server package: http://docs.nuget.org/docs/creating-packages/hosting-your-own-nuget-feeds