Vapor Blog

Visual Studio 2005 ships with a new compilation model for ASP.NET. This compilation model has already been pounded to death so instead, I’d like to focus on its adoption. While there are many benefits to the new compilation model, there are also a few disadvantages. And, although the benefits of the current Web Site Project model (introduced with Visual Studio 2005) are tremendous, some developers have found it difficult to master especially for large enterprise projects where the simplicity of Visual Studio’s 2003 project model was more than adequate.

The outcry has been loud enough that Microsoft has decided to release another compilation model to Visual Studio 2005. The Web Application Project model will be fully supported going forward and is expected to be released with Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2005. In the meantime, the WAP offering is available for download on Microsoft’s website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wap/default.aspx.

The WAP model essentially allows legacy projects authored under Visual Studio 2003 to be ported to Visual Studio 2005 format while maintaining the project concept that developers have grown accustomed to in Visual Studio 2003.

The strategy provides the best of both worlds because the Visual Studio 2005 feature suite and innovations are available in the new WAP model. For instance, personalization, theming, master pages etc are available in the new WAP model. The benefit is that developers can migrate with zero learning curve.

There are a few issues that you should be concerned about and a fairly exhaustive list is available at this link. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/WAP.asp#wapp_topic1

The new WAP model demonstrates that sometimes we have to take a step backward in order to take a giant leap forward. I believe that Microsoft has listened and responded appropriately by easing the burden of migration thru the WAP model. Project managers and decision makers can readily adopt this strategy since Microsoft has committed to fully supporting both models in the enterprise.