Could someone comment on the value of having two or more projects in one Visual Studio solution? 

Assuming the solution is an ASP.NET application, is there any value in deploying one web application over two or more virtual directories in IIS?  The virtual directories map to the projects under the solution. 

Any clarification would be appreciated!  Thanks! 

 I have some visual studio solutions that have multiple projects, but only one of those projects is actually ASP.NET code.  The other projects are data access or business object classes.  Seperating those out to their own project allows me to easily reuse them in other applications.

 I can't think of a scenario where I would want to have multiple virtual directories in IIS for the same application.  Again, I have some ASP.NET projects that have sub folders to divide the content up, but not actually two separate ASP.NET projects.
 

Hi dprior,

Thanks for the response.   I'll try to clarify what I am getting at. 

Consider a company that has an Intranet.  On this Intranet, they may want to deploy a few different applications, for example: 

Departmental News

IT Help Desk Application

Company Store

and so on.  Each of these Intranet applications could be a different project all under one ASP.NET solution.  Correct? 

Departmental News would have its own virtual directory on IIS, as would the IT Help Desk Application, the Company Store, etc. 

Do all of the applications a company might want to deploy on its Intranet have to be in one Visual Studio project and therefore in one virtual directory in IIS? 

 I don't see the need for that.  I would have simply one ASP.NET Web Application Project inside your solution.  Then have sub folders inside that project if desired.  Then I'd seperate out all business logic and data access objects into their own projects and reference those throughout (as they are likely to share at least some code).

 You can have multiple web application projects in a solution if you would like.  Just seems like more work than is necessary to me.  There's nothing stopping you from having 100 virtual directories if you would like.
 

I could not disagree more.  It is extremely useful to have multiple Web Application Projects under one solution. 

Assume you have a solution that has multiple pieces:

    1) Employment Application

    2) Evaluation Forms 

    3)  Document Center

You want these to be in separate projects that create separate DLL's so that when a change is made in one project, the other's are not recompiled and otherwise affected by the change.

Hi J. M. Parmer, 

Thanks for the input.  I have been trying understand practical situations where multiple projects under one solution make sense. 

Regards,

Tom