
How we ship GitHub for Windows - Empro
https://github.com/blog/1271-how-we-ship-github-for-windows
======
jimbobimbo
My favorite part of the manual description is step 7 onwards: switch to
another machine to upload compiled package, really!?

And yeah - great job, Adam! If someone still building and deploying desktop
applications manually - they are doing it wrong. Since when Visual Studio
switched to MSBuild (read: ages), build automation is _very_ easy on Windows.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
Yuuuuup. Transmit.app is the only app I knew of that would let you set MIME
types on upload, which is required by ClickOnce. That being said, I didn't
look very hard.

~~~
callumjones
Could something like CloudBerry's S3 PowerShell snap-in set the MIME type?

[http://www.cloudberrylab.com/default.aspx?page=amazon-s3-pow...](http://www.cloudberrylab.com/default.aspx?page=amazon-s3-powershell)

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j_s
I would be far more interested in how the auto-update process works rather
than hearing that someone automated their build. Would be way-crazy-awesome if
they could pull it out and release it open source, but they seem to be leaning
on it as a pretty serious part of their secret sauce.

~~~
HarshaThota
They are currently using ClickOnce for the auto-update mechanism but you may
find these interesting:

<https://github.com/github/Shimmer>

<https://github.com/synhershko/NAppUpdate>

~~~
j_s
Thanks. I haven't looked at ClickOnce in a long time, interesting to hear it
is a viable solution for commercial apps. For example, did not know it could
update in the background for next run of the app.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
It really isn't, which is sad, because it's like 95% Awesome and 5%
Showstopper Bugs. Here's the most damning aspect of it: if you sign your
ClickOnce application (which you are required to or else ClickOnce's installer
displays scary "Don't Install This" messages), then the cert expires, __every
user has to uninstall and reinstall __. Completely
untenable.<http://github.com/github/shimmer> is our plan for the future.

~~~
j_s
Thanks for this reminder... documenting how to cleanly transition from
ClickOnce to shimmer would be a spectacular resource.

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funkiee
I can't seem to find the source anywhere on GitHub for "GitHub for Windows". I
work on a build team (Mostly MSBuild but transitioning to Workflow builds in
the future) so I'm always interested in seeing everyone's Build and Deploy
scripts.

~~~
stack0v3erfl0w
GitHub for Windows is not open source.

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VeejayRampay
The Windows app for Github is pretty spectacular. Simple, beautiful and to-
the-point.

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draebek
I don't see anything in the automated release script's output about the
"sanity test on XP and Vista VMs" steps? Is that still manual?

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ohdios
I have a paid GitHub subscription, and this is the first I've heard of GitHub
for Windows.

~~~
skeletonjelly
It got fairly big attention here, and every Github page I visit has a button
to launch a clone via Github for Windows. Can't remember if an email was sent
out though.

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onetwothreefour
Pretty much par for the course of releasing any Windows app. :)

But a good overview none the less.

~~~
MartinCron
You're saying that one release per week is par for the course for a Windows
app? Sounds like you're selling the GitHub team short.

~~~
onetwothreefour
There's nothing novel about automating builds or pushing them out and letting
an auto updater deal with them.

This is par for the course. Welcome to software 101.

They ship once a week? Great. What does that actually tell you? Almost
nothing. We know nothing of _why_ they're shipping once a week. It's not
relevant, because it's not a metric that matters.

~~~
MartinCron
I don't think anything their doing is particularly _novel_ , but I don't think
it's par for the course, either. I may be wrong, but I don't think this is
commonplace among Windows desktop apps. I can think of a few others, but the
vast majority of examples don't have this kind of release automation.

 _Welcome to software 101_

Maybe you didn't mean that as dismissive and rude, but it sure comes across
that way. We can do better than this.

~~~
ryanmolden
I think a new rule for snarkiness is in order: if you crap on anyone else's
accomplishment you must also link to examples of your own awesomeness in the
area so everyone can learn.

