It's a management problem. My developers hated writing installer code and learning anything about it as long as we had a setup developer. They had no idea how complex it can get and why they should care. They wanted to write Java code, it seemed better. Incidentally we had about a 65% failure rate at deploying their awesome Java code and naturally many unhappy customers.
The solution was not to tell the setup developer to work harder but to get rid of his position altogether, task the architect to redesign the deployment story and teach developers Wix, forcing them to write at least one full installer. We took the time to explain topics such as upgrade, do brown bags on custom actions and wix extensions (PPTs that I use available @ http://msiext.codeplex.com). Devs actually started loving simple things like not having to do anything to replace a file by another during upgrade and not having to ask a setup developer to add that file in the first place. They just do it. Eventually setup stops being a problem and becomes a natural thing everyone does. I even have one person who recently chose a deployment-related project to a Java one! If anyone has a development team in our initial situation and needs help with some external convincing, I'd be happy to volunteer my time and travel and talk about our experience. We are www.appsecinc.com in NYC - I now have 35 setup-enabled developers and we're certainly not in the deployment business. cheers dB. dB. @ dblock.org Moscow|Geneva|Seattle|New York -----Original Message----- From: Tony Juricic [mailto:tjuri...@tradestation.com] Sent: Friday, September 03, 2010 12:58 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Bootstrapping and Burn Yep. Primadonnas that "just write their glorious code" and expect that somebody else takes care of how it ends up installed on the end user system(s) are more norm than exception. In fact, I can understand that. For example, I wouldn't mind having a dedicated slave to press compile and fix my coding errors button. I could be thinking about the important things in the meantime. -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Painter [mailto:chr...@deploymentengineering.com] Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 6:49 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Bootstrapping and Burn I agree with you Bob except for one problem. I've found so few setup experts who also have the broader application development experience. Too few developers want to specialize in this space. Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves attention? E-Mail Me ----- Original Message ---- From: Bob Arnson <b...@joyofsetup.com> To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Thu, September 2, 2010 7:32:20 AM Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Bootstrapping and Burn On 02-Sep-10 06:13, Pally Sandher wrote: > I have personally fixed things like that myself. Last year one of our dev's >decided to implement the use of CAPICOM for some basic password encryption& >MD5 >checking& thought it was OK to tell me "just self-register the CAPICOM DLL in >the installer& it'll work". He was also recommending we use an out-dated >version of the discontinued CAPICOM containing some known security >vulnerabilities. I re-wrote his code using the CryptoAPI completely removing >the >need for the CAPICOM redistributable. Incidentally he no longer works for us >any >more. > > When the product developers make stupid decisions which impact upon setup >development, call them on it or be prepared to put up with more of the same >until the end of time. This is why it's important for "setup developers" to be developers in their own right, so they can speak with authority and, when necessary, write code outside of setup to "lend a hand." -- sig://boB http://joyofsetup.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: Show off your parallel programming skills. 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