Bundled Technologies
In response to Chris's recent post regarding the inclusion of InstallAware and MSBuild in the new CodeGear tools, I must confess, I'm a little disappointed. I'm not saying that there aren't legitimate reasons behind the decision, I'm sure there are, but my disappointment is twofold. First of all, the recent release of JBuilder and the commitment on behalf of CodeGear to embrace open source products didn't seem to apply when choosing an installer. Having worked with many install technologies, for me, InnoSetup is by far superior to all others, by far. In my opinion, I only see two factors here that could have made the decision to not include Inno. The first is that there isn't a "visual" tool for creating end-user setups (like the times we had InstallShield Express). There are a bunch of third-party add-ons (ISTools), but that doesn't in any way stop CodeGear from taking advantage of this fact and creating their own add-on and somehow promoting open source technology. The second reason is that it might not be MSI. Why should it be though? MSI in my opinion, apart from being extremely slow only has one advantage, and that is rollback, which I'm sure could be accomplished by Inno with a little work. Packages on demand and other features that other installers have, Inno has had for a long time. One could argue that MSI is the *trusted* installer by the end-user. I'm sorry, I just don't buy this, and specially if it's for a product focused at developers, and more importantly these developers are somehow distinguishing themselves from the rest of the bunch. As for the developer using the technology in their end-user products, well I never used InstallShield Express out of the box and there is always choice.
As for Finalbuilder, now there's a product that's been part of the Delphi community as far back as I remember. If there's an innovation so great, that has made thousands of developers lives easier and made automation, deployment and building fun, that's Finalbuilder. It's in no way even comparable to MSBuild (well that's not entirely true, Finalbuilder has a command line tool also). I'm not saying that CodeGear should ditch MSBuild, it's got it's own place (there's even an action in Finalbuilder to call an MSBuild script). What I am saying is that there is truly an opportunity for CodeGear to deliver outstanding developer tools that make a difference and are not in line with other environments. I've been hoping for a Finalbuilder bundle for many years. It won't benefit me directly since I'm a devoted user and have my own license, but I really see it as a great benefit to developers and a very good selling point for CodeGear.
Oh well...
Disclaimer: In site of recent controversies, this post is my personal opinion and is not a "roadmap proposal" for CodeGear. I just think I still have a right to express my views and share them with those interested in reading them.