I understand the pain of trying to convince managers of anything that isn't
in black and white but as far as I can see the Wix code is of beta quality
ie..not functionally complete. It would problem be a bit irresponsible to
paint it otherwise...
Rob, What's the deal for the community getting involved to try and push this
along? (Sorry if this has been discussed previously)
2008/5/28 Neil Sleightholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I would like to make a suggestion: Could the beta tag on v3 be replaced
> with something less emotive.
>
> I am having problems convincing managers to accept v3 because of the
> beta tag, I think the code is more than that and has so much more than
> v2 that is worth adopting. I think if we have to wait for another year
> before the beta tag is removed it will stop a greater adoption of the
> code.
>
> I would suggest that in the near future (one or two months) it is
> released as something else. I'm not sure what but copying Microsoft you
> could use CTP (Community Technology Preview).
>
> Neil
>
> Neil Sleightholm
> X2 Systems Limited
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob
> Mensching
> Sent: 27 May 2008 19:22
> To: dB.; Daniel Hughes; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WIX 3.0 release date
>
> Interesting. Let's go back and look at the things that are driving the
> WiX v3 release.
>
> 1. Bugs. WiX v2 was marked "stable" by pushing a number of bugs to WiX
> v3 (especially Votive bugs). There are still a lot of bugs open that
> need to be fixed. I do not just want to push a bunch of WiX v2 bugs to
> WiX v4.
>
> 2. Patching. Patching is hard with MSI and the new tools in WiX v3 can
> help a lot. Those tools are basically done and we're just running down
> the bug tail now.
>
> 3. Votive. Votive was *very* rough in WiX v2. It had years to go
> before it was going to truly useable. In WiX v3, Justin and a lot of
> help from members of the VS team have made Votive far more usable.
> There are still a lot of bugs to fix and the only reason I think it can
> be done this year is because of the VS help. Otherwise, I'm quite
> certain we'd *still* have a very crippled VS story.
>
> 4. Bootstrapper. Every other day or so there is another request for
> chaining/bootstrapping. Some of the solutions out there meet some
> people's needs but IMHO none of them have all of the features that are
> needed to meet the majority of bootstrapping needs. This part of the
> WiX toolset is about 2 years late and I think it is a big mistake to go
> into 2009 without a useable bootstrap story.
>
> 5. DTF. After finally deciding that the MSI team was not going to do
> it, I asked Jason Ginchereau if he would like to add DTF to WiX v3.
> This codebase was pretty stable so my expectation was that this wouldn't
> affect our bug count much.
>
> Now let's talk about who's doing all of this work. I'm driving the bug
> count overall with help from the area owners. Peter Marcu
> (http://blogs.msdn.com/pmarcu) is driving the patching support backed up
> by Heath Stewart (http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths). Votive is lead by
> Justin Rockwood (http://blogs.msdn.com/jrock/) and Jason Ginchereau
> (http://blogs.msdn.com/jasongin)'s
> <http://blogs.msdn.com/jasongin%29%27s>team from VS. The bootstrapper code
> base is being developed by Fredrik Grohn (http://fredrikgrohn.com) and
> hopefully will be added to WiX soon. DTF is, of course, Jason's baby.
> Bob Arnson (http://www.joyofsetup.com) basically helps out everywhere.
>
> With the exception of the VS team I would guess that each of those
> people donate about 10 hours per week to the toolset. There are others
> but that is the bulk of regular development happening on the WiX
> toolset. The sheer number of hours available to address bugs is why I
> think it will take until the end of the year. We could cut the
> bootstrapper (again) to focus solely on bugs and probably "finish" WiX
> v3 sooner but I believe the bootstrapper is more important than that.
> Plus, this is a volunteer project so it is hard to expect everyone to
> stay excited about solely fixing bugs for 6+ months. <smile/>
>
> You should look at what parts of the WiX toolset you depend one when
> judging stability. If you just want the core toolset (candle, light)
> then that code base is very stable in v3. Arguably it is more stable
> than it was in WiX v2 (certainly more bug fixes). Granted v3 can change
> from build to build so you might pick up a bug but we fix core toolset
> regressions very, very quickly. As for Votive, I don't think you can
> compare the stability differences from v2 to v3. V3 is so much more
> feature rich and useful. That said, there is a lot of effort going into
> Votive right now and there have been some nasty bugs with VS2005
> integration lately. Patching (pyro, torch)... those tools are quite
> stable but new so you might find new things. DTF, has been around for a
> long time and the bug fixes seem to reflect that.
>
> Ultimately, I believe that "stability" in the WiX toolset is measured by
> the number of changes going into the codebase. WiX v2 has no
> development so it is *extremely* stable. <smile/> WiX v3 is quite
> functional but there are bug fixes going in so we have to "reserve the
> right" to accidentally break stuff that works. Pick you risk profile
> and go from there.
>
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