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Visual Studio 2013 released to web

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Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#21

Post by anton_gogolev »

daigoba66 wrote: post #17
Pxtl wrote: post #12

VS2012 took out installer projects (instead telling you to just use InstallShield), SQLCLR projects, was incompatible with Oleg Sych's T4 Toolbox plug-in, and had a colour-scheme in the TFS source browser that made my eyes want to bleed. Every other VS upgrade has been comparatively painless. I can't say I'm excited to try VS2013.

For installers, use http://wixtoolset.org/ .

Yeah, because I really want to spend hours upon hours studying obscure incantations that someone decided to be making sense.

WiX (and MSI, for that matter) is a disaster.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#23

Post by DrJokepu »

anton_gogolev wrote: post #21
daigoba66 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For installers, use http://wixtoolset.org/ .

Yeah, because I really want to spend hours upon hours studying obscure incantations that someone decided to be making sense. WiX (and MSI, for that matter) is a disaster.

It’s really not that bad. WiX is actually pretty decent, definitely not a “disaster”. It might look more frightening than InstallShield because you don’t get a nice UI that allows you to set up an installer with a few clicks, but I mean, we’re programmers here, surely editing textual configuration files is not an issue? It took me somethong like 30 minutes to replace our old InstallShield installer with WiX.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#24

Post by roel_v »

anton_gogolev wrote: post #21
daigoba66 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For installers, use http://wixtoolset.org/ .

Yeah, because I really want to spend hours upon hours studying obscure incantations that someone decided to be making sense. WiX (and MSI, for that matter) is a disaster.

The same can be said of programming in general.

It's true that msi is different from other installer builders, but it's for a reason. And if you have a concrete project you can build while following along with the wix tutorials and book, it's not difficult, it just takes some time.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#25

Post by _pmf_ »

duiker101 wrote: post #20
Pxtl wrote: post #12

VS2012 took out installer projects (instead telling you to just use InstallShield), SQLCLR projects, was incompatible with Oleg Sych's T4 Toolbox plug-in, and had a colour-scheme in the TFS source browser that made my eyes want to bleed. Every other VS upgrade has been comparatively painless. I can't say I'm excited to try VS2013.

I think the problem here is that VS needs to satisfy the needs of many different types of developers and also try to appeal each ones personal preferences. Personally I am enjoying VS2012 a lot and it is really sad that there are hardly other IDEs this good.

> I think the problem here is that VS needs to satisfy the needs of many different types of developers

No, it does not need to. Someone decided that it needs to pander to web monkeys instead of empowering users that have used VS for 10+ years.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#26

Post by acqq »

chillitom wrote: post #13
kossmoboleat wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VS 2008 here, somebody apparently tested 2012 but nothing came out of it with people fearing that a different C++ compiler will break everything...

Man! If you're doing C++ then you definitely want to get onto 2012/2013 ASAP, the improvements in tooling are amazing. "Navigate to.." alone is worth it.

VS 2008 is the last one capable to compile the C++ to produce the binaries that can run on Windows 2000. Believe or not, I actually need that. That prevents me to use any C++ language changes introduced after VS 2008.

The frustrating part is that MS actually removed the existing code from the already existing libraries (but which are not binary interchangeable between the compiler versions) in order to disable the support for Windows 2000. Otherwise I'd be able to use even VS 2013. They did the same for XP with VS 2012, but more people made the fuss so now even VS 2013 should support XP, AFAIK.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#27

Post by nickpp »

daigoba66 wrote: post #17
Pxtl wrote: post #12

VS2012 took out installer projects (instead telling you to just use InstallShield), SQLCLR projects, was incompatible with Oleg Sych's T4 Toolbox plug-in, and had a colour-scheme in the TFS source browser that made my eyes want to bleed. Every other VS upgrade has been comparatively painless. I can't say I'm excited to try VS2013.

For installers, use http://wixtoolset.org/ .

Or Advanced Installer's free edition if you're xml-challenged.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#28

Post by coffeeaddicted »

DrJokepu wrote: post #23
anton_gogolev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because I really want to spend hours upon hours studying obscure incantations that someone decided to be making sense. WiX (and MSI, for that matter) is a disaster.

It’s really not that bad. WiX is actually pretty decent, definitely not a “disaster”. It might look more frightening than InstallShield because you don’t get a nice UI that allows you to set up an installer with a few clicks, but I mean, we’re programmers here, surely editing textual configuration files is not an issue? It took me somethong like 30 minutes to replace our old InstallShield installer with WiX.

I gave it a shot for a day recently but found it way harder to use than InstallShield or NSIS. Part of it was probably the broken documentation where half the links just ended in nirvana. But I gave up when I learned you really have to add each single file one-by-one and the documentation even defended this as a feature.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#29

Post by anton_gogolev »

DrJokepu wrote: post #23
anton_gogolev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because I really want to spend hours upon hours studying obscure incantations that someone decided to be making sense. WiX (and MSI, for that matter) is a disaster.

It’s really not that bad. WiX is actually pretty decent, definitely not a “disaster”. It might look more frightening than InstallShield because you don’t get a nice UI that allows you to set up an installer with a few clicks, but I mean, we’re programmers here, surely editing textual configuration files is not an issue? It took me somethong like 30 minutes to replace our old InstallShield installer with WiX.

Don't mean to sound like an ass, but oh really?

WiX is a thin wrapper around MSI (which sucks beyond belief) and as such it suffers full blast from all the "design" decisions of the latter, not even trying to remedy the situation.

I really could pour out a full-blown rant on MSI in general and WiX in particular, but that would be wildly offtopic and of no interest to fellow HNers.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 released to web

#30

Post by archon »

_pmf_ wrote: post #25
duiker101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem here is that VS needs to satisfy the needs of many different types of developers and also try to appeal each ones personal preferences. Personally I am enjoying VS2012 a lot and it is really sad that there are hardly other IDEs this good.

> I think the problem here is that VS needs to satisfy the needs of many different types of developers No, it does not need to. Someone decided that it needs to pander to web monkeys instead of empowering users that have used VS for 10+ years.

> pander to web monkeys

Really? How exactly does VS2012 pander to "web monkeys" at the expense of others?

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