Doug, You had a bad experience with CFMX on Windows. I had, mostly, great experiences on Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X - with probably the best part of a hundred installs. I'm sorry that our experiences differ. That said, calling it "crippled" and "dumb" and saying "all of [the configuration applets] must be hacked" is neither constructive nor accurate. And what's a 'configuration applet' anyway?
As for the installer being the first "face" - that's why so much effort in Red Sky has been focused on the installer, even tho' the vast majority of CFMX users have successful installs today. Macromedia does indeed listen and has recognized that some users have problems and some installation scenarios are not as slick as they could be. Hence Red Sky. Sean A Corfield -- http://www.corfield.org/blog/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood On Sunday, Jun 15, 2003, at 04:12 US/Pacific, Doug White wrote: > In my opinion, there should be no middle ground for installer > packaging. I > think that statement is merely a cop-out. I do not agree that people > "do not > want" a comprehensive installer package. > > I am a firm believer that the installer package should address every > configuration that the software author claims to support in their sales > documentation. Anything less, and I believe you are short-changing > the > purchaser, as well as risking loss of sales of the product, due to > complexity of > the install and configuration process. This issue is major enough in > scope, > that I am also of the opinion that it is a reason so many enterprises > have > decided to delay or just not upgrade. Hello? MM, are you listening? > > It makes no difference to me if there are fifty people installing the > software > in one pass, and one or two (I suspect it is much higher) have broken > installations due to omissions in the installer scripting and/or the > documentation. You guys can BLOG all you want, but until a solution > is reached, > you are still delivering a crippled software package, and that no > doubt is > affecting sales, or lack of sales. > > Secondly, if any of the components require configuration, then that > should > either be addressed as options in the original installer package, or > at least in > the CF Administrator applet. I actually consider it a dumb design > scenario to > have multiple configuration applets, all of which must be hacked, > tweaked, or > whatever you call it before getting down to work with the product. I > don't > think you need to address EVERY configuration scenario, but you MUST > address all > of the ones your own sales hype claims to support. Period, end of > story. > > Perhaps someone needs to recognize that the installer package is the > first > "face" that you present to your customer. There should be a gigantic > effort to > make sure this is a pleasant experience, not just some of the time, > but ALL of > the time. The best engineered software in the world is doomed to > failure if it > will not smoothly install and configure in a simple and efficient > manner. > Someone should realize that in a production environment, developer > types are not > the ones doing the installation and configuration of server products. > In many > shops, the developers do not even have the access permissions or are > many miles > away from the scene. > > What good is it to concentrate all engineering resources to the core > product if > the customer cannot successfully install it and as a result refuses or > delays > buying it? > > I too, am participating in the Red Sky project, and that is where I > got the > impression that MM was addressing some of the installer issues. I > have made a > lot of input, but must await disclosure by the MM folks before I can > discuss > them in depth. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
