Best way to deploy lists to Sharepoint 2010

Question

OK, we're just starting our Sharepoint development, and I'm a little stuck on one item. We obviously have a development and production environment. When creating custom lists, do you create a list in both locations, or do you create the list in code? If you create it in code, do you first check to see if it exists, and if it doesn't create it?

Answer 1

do you create a list in both locations, or do you create the list in code?

You can use List Definition to create Custom Lists programatically. This will be faster than creating manualy if you have lists with large number of columns.

You can also check if this list exists, programatically, and if not use this template to create the list.