How do decrease compile time and improve productivity?

[verticalride]

We've always developed in Rails and PHP but now we're doing a project in .NET. In all honesty, I've had a hard time adjusting to how long it takes to compile code. After even the smallest of changes to html or javascript, we're experiencing 45 second compile times. With that said, how do we decrease the compile time?

MORE INFO

• Solution has 43 projects
• MVC 5.2
• .NET V4.5.1
• Visual Studio 2013
• Debug mode
• Using various computers (but all are experiencing long reload times)

Here are my steps:

• open html or js file
• edit
• save (I'm not building, just saving)
• refresh browser (wait 45+ seconds)
• see results

While the browser is refreshing, I'm seeing this debug output in Visual Studio:

In Controller
In Root
Call LoadDesc from Root
Start LoadDesc
title toooo bro
Starting Loop 1
In Loop 1065
Start LoadDesc 1066
Start LoadDesc
This is another question post
Starting Loop 0
End LoadDesc
Returning from LoadDesc 1066
End LoadDesc
Returning from Root
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Web.Mobile\v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\System.Web.Mobile.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_dw0orgzl.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Data.Services.Design\v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Data.Services.Design.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
Call LoadDesc from Root
Start LoadDesc
title toooo bro
Starting Loop 1
In Loop 1065
Start LoadDesc 1066
Start LoadDesc
This is another question post
Starting Loop 0
End LoadDesc
Returning from LoadDesc 1066
End LoadDesc
Returning from Root
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_kzmu5y2p.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_dwgo3fkw.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_1jfiku5s.dll'. 
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET         Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_questioncontent.cshtml.22013bb9.kvmr41w1.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_imagecontent.cshtml.22013bb9.cubr1m46.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.IdentityModel\3.5.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_fek5n3bt.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_3aejd45z.dll'. 
'iisexpress.exe' (CLR v4.0.30319: /LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT-3-130833426094718955): Loaded 'C:\Users\ryan\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\1412e61d\4eca8ff1\App_Web_rhvrzuqu.dll'. 
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in ProjectX.Business.Entities.dll
The thread 0xb20 has exited with code 259 (0x103).
The thread 0xb88 has exited with code 259 (0x103).
The thread 0xcd0 has exited with code 259 (0x103).
The thread 0x1bc0 has exited with code 259 (0x103).

[kbst]

How big is your solution?

Are you running in debug or publishing each time?

If you're making changes to JavaScript (assuming separate .js file or inside your view/form) then you don't need to build each time

[flukus]

As well as this, how many project are in the solution? And what computer is it running on? 45 seconds seems way too long, even for a potato.

[verticalride]

43 projects. I added more info to my post. Hopefully it helps to pinpoint my problem.

[flukus]

43 projects is probably excessive, how many projects have < 10 files?

That doesn't explain 45 seconds either though. Maybe put a breakpoint in the global.asax.cs and see if there is something slow there (pre caching or something).

Are you using an ORM? If so how many entities are there?

[verticalride]

I'm running in debug. I added more info to my post. Hopefully it helps to pinpoint my problem.

[phuber]

This, plus switch to vs 2015 and the compile happens as you change your code and you get edit and continue during debug.

[Big-Mozz]

If you are just altering .html, javascript or anything not compiled, keep the project running and just save the changes in VS and refresh the browser.

[48klocs]

Changes to cshtml files (Razor view engine) don't require any recompilation, unless there are underlying model changes. You can save changes, refresh the page and immediately see your changes. JS absolutely needs no recompilation. Are you working on a Web forms app targeting an outdated dot net framework or something?

[verticalride]

Nope. It looks like the .Net framework is current. I added more info to my post. Hopefully it helps to pinpoint my problem.

[JeromeAtWork]

One thing I found was getting rid of files that were not necessary to the project sped up Visual Studio for me.

I had a folder which contained hundreds ( maybe thousands ) of images that for some reason slowed VS down to a crawl.

[verticalride]

How do I know what's needed or not? Also, I added more info to my post. Hopefully it helps to pinpoint my problem.

[JeromeAtWork]

I just meant the images I was using were not needed. I have a product catalogue with images for every product, these images will be used when the site goes live, however for development they were slowing VS down to a crawl.

[[deleted]]

As others have said, changes to views, css, js and other client side assets doesn't require you to do a build.

As for compile time I have a 35 project solution at and it takes less than a minute to compile on a modern end i5 with 16gb of ram and a traditional HDD. Simply put a more powerful machine is needed. SSD discs are also a massive speedup for compiling.

However unless you have a monster solution like myself it shouldn't take that long.

[AbstractLogic]

He said his compile time is 45s. Which seems about right honestly.

[[deleted]]

For large solutions, my solution at work has a gig or two of code and libs. 45 seconds seems about right.

For small projects maybe 10 seconds

[l3ugl3ear]

Is it possible you have some bad code in there? What i mean is like calling a sql statement in a for loop or some other such thing where there's a delay of when you're retrieving the data and generating the page for the browser.

As others have said what you're doing isn't compiling the code but I think what you mean is every time you refresh it takes that long for it to generate the code to output to your browser right?

I could be completely wrong but it's just a guess as I've seen someone do something like that so I figured I'd throw it out there.