[wix-devs] Status of tests in Wix 3 and 4

[Heath Stewart]

And Happy Holidays to you all as well. ☺

- Heath via Nine<http://www.9folders.com/> on Android
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From: Heath Stewart
Sent: Dec 24, 2016 10:58 AM
To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Status of tests in Wix 3 and 4

I'm not talking about getting the tasty like tests to pass. Yes, that requires someone doing the work. I'm talking about keeping them passing once they do. Setting up a consistent environment for testing is key and AppVeyor can help with PRs.

As for running them on dev boxes, I've been experimenting with Docker on Windows with great success. In fact, I'm thinking about converting my MSI cmdlets over to this (though development has been stale and less interesting as of late). I've even prototyped the new VS setup engine on the microsoft/windowsservercore image.

I'd be happy to share how I've set this up and contribute some Dockerfiles. Again, this is for helping tests to keep working once they do. It's also a great way to shield dev machines from changes (like I tried to do with the deputil tests on real hardware), and you can do many containers at once and in different configurations simultaneously. The overhead for containers - even Windows containers - is far less than full VMs. I can run quite a few with a large solution open in vs and still barely notice a slow down on my laptop.

So testing could build images (if needed - they can be cached if we plan base images well and could even publish them to a  Docker registry), map the build output directory into containers, and start tests piping status back to an observer to report pass/fail.

- Heath via Nine<http://www.9folders.com/> on Android
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From: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
Sent: Dec 24, 2016 9:50 AM
To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Status of tests in Wix 3 and 4

"internal" is the problem. Always has been. Outside Microsoft the tests have never passed. See attached (and copied below since attachment will probably be stripped) for an email I plucked out my archive from 2015 that says the same thing that is always said about this problem.

Note: AppVeyor isn't the solution to getting the tests passing. It may be fun and trendy (I use it for my simple OSS projects too!) but spending time on AppVeyor will not get the tests passing any better. AppVeyor is just a distraction from the work that would need to be done.

Merry Christmas Eve!


Here is the attachment (I found 4 more with almost the exact same conversation):

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From: Heath Stewart [mailto:heaths at outlook.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 8:58 PM
To: WiX toolset developer mailing list <wix-devs at lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [WiX-devs] WiX Test Packages

For that matter, all the tests need some love. Peter had asked about this recently as well and my reply was pretty much the same as Rob’s.

- Heath from my Surface Pro 3

From: Rob Mensching
Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎March‎ ‎17‎, ‎2015 ‎1‎:‎10‎ ‎PM
To: WiX toolset developer mailing list

Someone needs to do the work. We don’t necessarily need the exact same packages (with all the private data in it)… just something that can satisfy the tests (or update tests as appropriate).
Work to be done by someone that wants to do it.
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FireGiant | Dedicated support for the WiX toolset | http://www.firegiant.com/


From: Brian Rogers [mailto:rogers.brian at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 1:05 PM
To: WiX toolset developer mailing list
Subject: Re: [WiX-devs] WiX Test Packages
:) Is there something I should say to this gentleman or just ignore the need?
Side note, not that I have a lot of time, but is this something only previous MS people can do? If so, is there a way to get in on the fun?
Hope all is well!


Brian Rogers
"Intelligence removes complexity." - Me
http://blogs.msdn.com/icumove
On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com> wrote:
Yep. Outstanding task.
_______________________________________________________________
FireGiant | Dedicated support for the WiX toolset | http://www.firegiant.com/
From: Brian Rogers [mailto:rogers.brian at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 12:58 PM
To: Windows Installer XML toolset developer mailing list
Subject: [WiX-devs] WiX Test Packages
Hey Rob / Bob / Heath,
What are you guys doing to replace all the MSI packages we had internally? I only ask because there is a PR and I feel there should be tests for it but don't know the new way.
Thanks,


Brian Rogers
"Intelligence removes complexity." - Me
http://blogs.msdn.com/icumove
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____________________________________________________________________
WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List provided by FireGiant http://www.firegiant.com/