Naming Conventions for Project and Solution Folders

Small Solution Structures

If the project space is small I'll just name the folder and solution to match the fully-qualified namespace.

Folder
c:\FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants

Solution
c:\FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants\FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants.sln

Namespace
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants

Larger Solution Structures

If the solution directory tree is very deep or there are many projects are under the root namespace I will break the solution folders up to remove redundant uses of the root name.

Folder
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants

Solution
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\MyFancyPants.sln

Namespace
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants

This will help keep to avoid errors when a path can get too long and wreak havoc with some source control tools.

Project Structures

The project names will follow suit, leaving out the name of the solution.

Folder
c:\FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants\Library
OR
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library

Project
c:\FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants\Library\Library.csproj
OR
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\Library.csproj

Namespace
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants.Library

Output
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants.Library.dll

The exception is that the project output will be the fully-qualified name of the project. This makes identifying the assembly easier and prevent collision of names like Library.dll.

Folders Not Divided By Namespace

Inside of projects I try to follow the same structure but if a folder is not to be included in a namespace or I want to group some files without changing the namespace structure I will create a folder with a "_" prefix.

Project
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\Library.csproj

Folders
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\_build
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\_configuration
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\_documentation
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\_contracts\ISomeView.cs
c:\FrogsBrain\MyFancyPants\Library\_service\ISomeService.cs

Namespace
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants.Library

Output
FrogsBrain.MyFancyPants.Library.dll

All files inside of "_" prefix folders are considered to be in the same namespace as their parent folder.

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I've tried variations of these structures but will be implementing this as the standard structure for all projects I am responsible for in the future. It's the cleanest and easiest to manage layout I've worked with and has grown from experimentation over a couple years. So, if you look at some of my code and it doesn't already follow this pattern it will eventually.