In this chapter, we looked at how the various Visual Studio projects affect the end deployment strategy for your Web site. Visual Studio provides several models, including

• HTTP sites that use IIS on the development machine

• File system sites that exist in the development file system, using the Web server built into Visual Studio

• FTP sites, where the bits are transferred to the target server via FTP

In addition to copying the software directly to the deployment machine, you may also precompile the application before copying it. By precompiling, you save the first end user to hit your site the few seconds it takes to compile the site. Of course, the subsequent hits take a much shorter time. However, if you foresee the site churning a lot, it may be worthwhile to precompile for performance. In addition, you may precompile the application so as to deploy it using an installer or a copying technique.