Last year the MSBuild team had a very interesting blog asking people if they
had $100 to spend on MSBuild how would they spend it? They then went on to
give a list of possible priorities.
I think it would be very beneficial if both the MSI team and the WiX virtual
team would have similar blog posts. When doing it, be sure to include a
broad list of features that consumers would want not just things the teams want.
For the MSI team, my wish would be that they put a lot more work into
properly behaving custom action sandboxes so that consuming EXE's and Managed
Code DLL's wouldn't be problematic.
Justin Rockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Interesting discussion so far. I just wanted to chime in a
little here. I think Mathias is correct here in stating that there are some
real problems with Windows Installer (and thereby Wix in its current form). I
work on the dang thing but I still get frustrated at Windows Installer. It's
just too hard to do simple things. Right now, Wix is a wrapper on top of MSI,
and while we are trying to make things simpler by bundling in custom actions,
providing some guidance on how to write "correct" installers, providing a
development environment via Votive, etc. we still have a long, long way to go
before it's really easy for devs not conversant in all of the intricacies of
MSI. We'll get there eventually, but slowly. As always, we are open to
constructive feedback and will try our best to pass on some of your feedback to
the Windows Installer group.
Thanks,
Justin
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Martin
MacPherson
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 2:14 AM
To: Holmgren Mathias
Cc: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] yep - back to being 100% frustrated
http://johnmcfadyen.spaces.live.com/
2008/5/15 Holmgren Mathias <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Don't blame the tools as there are plenty of people out there using
these tools and making them work seemlessly and quickly on a day to day basis.
Well, you can't just disregard the large majority of people who are
struggling a lot with this. And you can't disregard the "developer
perspective", because developers are the people that have to deal with this.
Sure, one part of the story is about expectations and the learning curve of
installation. Before building an installation package, you expect it to be
pretty easy, like a couple of days work. Then when you start doing it you find
out that the level of investment necessary to complete a working real world
installer is not 10 but maybe 100 times greater than what you expected, or more
(yes, for real, I'm not making this up). And we are talking very experienced
people here, not rookie devs.
Having to invest your time so heavily to get so little tangible result back
is a shock to most people. And when all the bumps, twists and turns of the
technology are added on top of that learning process there will be frustration.
Now, I'm not much for nursing cry baby mentality either. It will get you
nowhere. But I do feel that there is a case to be made here about not putting
up with things that are overburdening. This is the other part of the story.
If the tools can be improved to make installation simpler, why settle for
less?
Or are installer technology and the tools already as good as they can ever
become?
No. Identify the stuff that can be made easier with better tools. Reduce some
of the burden of that complexity you are referring to and streamline the more
common stories to ease the learning curve. That's what should be done.
> http://john.mcfadyen.spaces.live.com
Domain lookup of that comes up blank. Do you have another link? I sure could
use some info on those undocumented features.
/Mathias
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