Rob Mensching, an MSSDE, has finally released his WiX tools for building MSI files from XML. I say “finally,” because I’ve been using his tools for months to build the MSI files that MSDN puts up on microsoft.com/download. All of our downloads have to be wrapped in an MSI so that you have to agree to the EULA before you get the files. Plus, we need to bundle some descriptive text and author name in there, along with the code that pops open the install folder after the files have been installed. Instead of using VS.NET to create the MSI files for each set of folks, I built a tool and the best programatic interface to creating MSI files that I could find was easily Rob’s. Check it out.
Kevin Lindsey has been exploring Avalon and posting some things he didn’t expect. I love how he posts pictures of what he expected alongside of what he actually got:
According to recent industry rumor, Longhorn won’t ship ’til 2006.
According to our internal OS folks, a new OS isn’t ubiquitous enough to target it as a base for new consumer application work for 6 years.
Even 2 years after .NET was available everywhere, people are still actively doing the MFC and VB6 thing.
2 years ’til 2006 + 6 years ’til ubiquity + 2 years not doing the new thing = 10 years of good, strong life left in Windows Forms at least.
In spite of my love on Avalon, I’m so confidendent that Windows Forms has a life left that I’m working with Mike on Windows Forms Programming 2/e. A book is hard enough that you don’t do it if the topic is dead, so that’s me putting my time (and Addison-Wesley’s money) where my mouth is.
With the bottom line more and more important, the era of “company loyalty” and “guaranteed employment” is long over. RentACoder.com takes this to it’s logical conclusion, matching vendors with jobs and money with qualified folks with the time and willingness to do the job at the asking price. As connectedness improves, the importance of being on site declines, the perfect market for services will develop, giving us eBay for employment.
Robert Hess, that .NET Show guy, talks about why he’s so into Longhorn in the recent .NET Shows lately:
“What you -do- need to pay attention to, is how ‘Longhorn’ will evolve the users concept of exactly what a Windows application is all about, and what features and functionality it should be providing them with. Many application developers should be starting to think about this TODAY, and how to begin incorporating some of these features into their application moving forward. Just the schematized file system that WinFS will introduce alone can represent not only a big jump in the potential functionality of an application, but also a considerable change in how your existing application might want to begin thinking about data storage.”
