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Home » Community » Coffee corner » UPP SW deployment
UPP SW deployment [message #16872] |
Fri, 18 July 2008 12:41 |
mr_ped
Messages: 825 Registered: November 2005 Location: Czech Republic - Praha
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Experienced Contributor |
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I was recently thinking about what in U++ works for me, and I figured out (among other things) I like the package manager a lot, because starting new project usually requires just that, to enter new name of package, some basic set up about build methods, and you can go straight to writing tests (and code), and you are already producing cross-platform solution (although you have to try to compile sources often at all platforms to avoid some minor syntax problems with different compilers).
This thought did trigger my common set of analytical questions in my head, like what is opposite to this, and from one point of view the opposite of starting project is deployment of finished application to customer.
So that's the story how I run into "How does U++ help with SW deployment now?" question. And "What would help you and can be nice fit for U++? And what is your idea about importance of SW deployment and tasks you do connected to it?"
My personal view is that U++ doesn't help at all, actually the tidiness of source tree with only upp+cpp+h files is amazing (some "init" started to appear lately, is it really needed? Can't this one be built temporarily just during compilation and put rather into "out" dir than in src?) and something I absolutely love, but it also means you have to hunt final .exe somewhere in "out" folder which can be sort of puzzling in case you build with different compilers+flags, so I think U++ right now is a bit hostile in this matter.
I have hard time to figure out what would fit into U++ (TheIDE probably is the main target) and help with this.
Only two things did cross my mind.
1) the "list" of all files needed for application execution (.exe, all .dll/.so files, eventually dependency explorer which can detect usage of all .dll files outside of U++ file tree, so you can check them all visually), probably generated during build process? Or after user request?
2) "export application" (or "deploy"?), which would take all necessary files from "out" directory and copy them into destined folder from user. The result should be something what you can pack and send somebody else, and he will be able to run the application. This together with custom deploy steps (which would add necessary external files to such file tree) sounds good to me.
What are your ideas? Do you think this has some potential and should be targeted in the future of U++? What would save you work and hassle, and what is your way to deploy final SW?
[Updated on: Fri, 18 July 2008 12:43] Report message to a moderator
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Re: UPP SW deployment [message #16877 is a reply to message #16872] |
Fri, 18 July 2008 22:25 |
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mirek
Messages: 13984 Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Member |
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Ehm, maybe one thing makes deployment relatively easy, at least for me: There are virtually no other files that have to be deployed than .exe
BTW, in my glorious municipal agenda project, I have now "minimal development roundtrip" about 10 minutes - from specification of new feature to deployment of updated application. Of course, some features take longer (e.g. adding a new type of report takes me usually 30 - 60 minutes, new type of search about 20 minutes etc..). Anyway, sometimes I develop and deploy new versions of 5 applications in 2 hours, including time spent with users to specify requests
Anyway, secret weapon to this is SelfUpdate. Very simple but saves a lot of time.
Also, maybe you can you ".post" link steps to do something....
Mirek
[Updated on: Fri, 18 July 2008 22:25] Report message to a moderator
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Re: UPP SW deployment [message #16912 is a reply to message #16909] |
Sun, 20 July 2008 16:16 |
cbpporter
Messages: 1405 Registered: September 2007
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Ultimate Contributor |
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The problem is with bigger packages, often several hundreds of MBs. You won't get that far with manual coding if you want to do something more complex than moving all the files from a folder to the destination. InstallShield organizes files in groups, and groups in components, offers GUI for users to select those components, has support for encryption, language dependent files, registry keys, etc.
It has created a "standard" for installers and uninstallers, and comparing U++ installer to one of those installers (more like a comparison as to how it follows the standard, but also a little bit on the functionality side) is like comparing Notepad to Wordpad.
On the other hand, using InstallShield as a developer is a major pain, because you have to write a lot of code (or at least maintain the autogenerated code) in a VB like scripting language and you use WinAPI to create your interfaces (at least in the versions I used, which are a little bit dated).
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Re: UPP SW deployment [message #16938 is a reply to message #16912] |
Mon, 21 July 2008 20:13 |
dmcgeoch
Messages: 52 Registered: November 2006 Location: New Jersey
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Member |
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I have been using InstallShield for another project, It is basically a wrapper for the Microsoft MSI installer. It does give some greater freedom in checking for required features and some additional scripting. It does have a decent interface for creating the installation package, but we have had to create work-arounds for various limitations.
Dave
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