Why have separate Debug and Release folders in Visual Studio?

Question

By default, of course, Visual Studio creates separate bin folders for Debug and Release builds. We are having some minor issues dealing with those from the perspective of ex

Answer 1

The way I see it, this is simply a convenience on the developer's machine allowing them to compile and run both Debug and Release builds simultaneously.

If you have scripts or tools running inside Visual Studio, the IDE allows you to use the ConfigurationName and other macros to obtain paths which are configuration-independent.

If you are running scripts and tools externally from the command-line (i.e. you are structuring some kind of release or deployment process around it), it is better to do this on a build server, where the distinction between Debug and Release goes away.

For example, when you invoke msbuild from the command-line (on the build server) you can specify the Configuration property for Debug or Release, and the OutputPath property to build to one location only (regardless of the Configuration).