

CoApp, package management system for open source apps on Windows - adn37
http://coapp.org/

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tomjen3
What about the none open source apps? If microsoft is ever going to be
relevant again, they have to make it worth developing software for Windows
rather than webapps. Microsoft has some advantage, since their apis are much
more powerful than html/css/javascript, but actually getting users to install
your program, and dealing with all that crap makes it not worth it.

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jmatt
So right now I have msys + mingw + msysgit + emacs + console 2 on windows 7
and xp for development. It was difficult to set up and I'm happy that it is
fully functional. I am actually a bit surprised that I got bash and emacs to a
point where I'm happy. I can do what I need to do to deploy my application on
windows with nsis. Or since the main part of the program is in python py2exe +
nsis.

I can already get to the point where my application is an msi or exe or zip.
What is CoApp going to add to the equation?

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jmatt
I just finished watching the presentation. I'm not an especially big proponent
of open source... but this approach is so wrong. It ignores the solutions that
exist and work in favor of new solutions that exclusively use Microsoft build
tools and create more work for cross platform developers.

I must still be missing something because it looks like I'll have to maintain
another configuration for coapp while still supporting gnu make (including
mingwXX-make for other windows developers). Is there any reason that they are
ignoring gnu tools? It's almost like they don't want to make the easy decision
to just bring gnu to windows. You know... ./configure & make & make install.
Windows users could just use bash.

The project style looks like classic Microsoft. I guess that bothers me
because he claims independence. XML all over the place. New syntax and new
ways of doing things that already work in * nix. A lot of magic and little
explanation of the limits that will be placed on these builds.

I support a build system that works on windows. I just don't support some
rigid new build system that kicks out pre-built microsoft binaries and
requires me to maintain additional build configurations as a cross platform
developer. Especially if that means I have to use a completely different
development tool chain.

Ideally if I could maintain and update my *nix gnu tools and python using
coapp I would use it. But I'm uncomfortable with a build system that isn't
flexible. I've run into enough problems building on windows. I don't need
another complication to add to the process.

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random42
This is exactly what I miss most on my switch from Ubuntu to Windows7. I find
the need to reboot on installation/updates especially annoying.

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benologist
I'd trade a reboot for Adobe's retarded "we noticed you have [anything] open,
please close it to continue this installation" policy.

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buster
Oh, how i miss apt-get like functionality on windows. I hope this takes off!

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VMG
It is interesting that Microsoft is involved with this. One of the developers
is being paid to work on this project full-time.

Now if there were something like this for device drivers...

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barake
Windows 7 downloads and installs appropriate (and not generic!) drivers if
allowed, even decent video drivers.

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koenigdavidmj
Yep. I was pleasantly surprised that after I had made it through the initial
rounds of Windows Update, I had an Intel icon in my systray.

Of course, the fact that my Broadcom wireless NIC was supported out of the box
was also nice.

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twopoint718
Also useful is WPKG: <http://wpkg.org/> Though it isn't exactly the same idea
(more related to multiple workstations).

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est
What does MSI lack compared to CoApp?

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hvs
CoApp may actually use MSI for packaging, but MSI doesn't have dependency
management.

The purpose of CoApp is to make open source applications easily installable on
Windows. I'm thinking similar to how you can install the GnuWin32 tools but
more robust. So maybe a better description would be like Cygwin but more
integrated into the Windows ecosystem.

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spot
what i need is auto update please!

