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Earlier this year, there were a couple people inside Visual Studio pushing for a breakout session and Birds of a Feather session for the WiX toolset at TechEd 2007. They approached me to ask if I'd be willing to present. I very much was. I asked permission from my manager to be gone during the first week of June (remember, the WiX toolset is still a side project for me). He whole heartedly agreed. The Visual Studio dudes submitted very nice proposals for TechEd sessions on WiX. They were denied.
Apparently there were a lot of sessions proposed for a limited number of slots. Apparently the WiX toolset doesn't rate when stacked up against all those other sessions. Now if there was an outcry from the community maybe we could shoot for a session at the next PDC. <wink/>
5 Comments
Comment by Mr. WiX on Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:48 AM
Comment by Andrew on Sunday, March 11, 2007 3:21 PM
Comment by Matthew on Sunday, March 11, 2007 5:30 PM
Comment by Mr. Mike on Monday, March 12, 2007 1:00 PM
I just started using WiX and I'm pushing to have it used as the standard install tool at my work place (with little luck, I'm sure I'm not the only one). I've been writing installers for years and WiX is the first 'industrial strength' install tool done right.
I would love to see WiX at TechEd as it would also enlighten other developers as to how installers should work and be built.
Comment by Christopher Painter on Monday, March 12, 2007 1:18 PM
BTW, why would anyone really be suprised when setup is once again treated as a second class development activity? It doesn't become important until it falls apart in operation. After all, enterprise engineering shops was the real driving factor for MSI. Dev shops still reluctantly bother to assign their most junior developers to their packaging efforts. They pick up IS and expect it to just work with little or no design, development and testing.