How can I use multiple projects to separate a large ASP.NET MVC site into departments?

Question

Suppose I have a very large site like amazon.com. I’d like to use asp.net mvc for the whole site but having one large project with hundreds of contributors is not practical. I’d like to split the work into projects like books, tools, toys, groceries, etc. for each department. Then when they build and deliver a new release I can just drop the “books.dll” into the site and it all magically works. I see this thing called “areas” but it looks like they’re still part of the same project. I need something that could potentially be stored not just in a separate project but a separate TFS instance as well. The departments would only ever come together on my test/production servers and hopefully just by dropping in DLLs. Anyone know of a way to do this?

Answer 1

Shoulda looked harder before posting:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee307987%28VS.100%29.aspx "Walkthrough: Creating an ASP.NET MVC Areas Application Using Multiple Projects"

(self-slap!)

Answer 2

Asp MVC 2 has support for Project Areas catering for this development scenario

More detail at Phil Haack blog

Answer 3

Have a look at areas in ASP.NET MVC 2.0.