I don't think people read beta as "not functionally complete", I think
they read "full of bugs". I agree that it is missing some very important
features but in my experience what is there is very reliable. I seem to
remember v2 going through a few releases where the community was asked
whether the current build was a good release candidate and then that one
was posted as a release.
Neil
From: Martin MacPherson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 28 May 2008 17:52
To: Neil Sleightholm
Cc: Rob Mensching; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WIX 3.0 release date
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/
_______________________________________________
WiX-users mailing list
WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/
_______________________________________________
WiX-users mailing list
WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
