[wix-devs] Building Wix 4

[Rob Mensching]

A couple things:

1. With the advances in embedded PDBs and SourceLink, you may not need to build the WiX Toolset to help find bugs. When WiX v4-preview.0 is available a lot of testing opportunities will be available.

2. WiX v4's current micro-repos mean you don't necessarily have to enlist in everything to help work on one part. If you have a particular area of the WiX Toolset you'd like to help improve, it will likely be more efficient to focus on the few pieces you need to be successful.

The WiX v4 build is absolutely not optimized to build and run the whole. WiX is a very large project and can be easier to digest in smaller pieces.

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Ron Martin via wix-devs
Sent: Friday, January 1, 2021 12:33 PM
To: wix-devs <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Ron Martin <cpuwzd at comcast.net>
Subject: [wix-devs] Building Wix 4

    I am trying to set up my computer so that I can help find bugs in
    Wix 4. Since there is no installation package published yet, I
    thought I could clone a few repos and build an installation package
    or otherwise establish a debugging environment.

    With a known bug in VS 2019, having referenced a preview version of
    the .NET 5.0 SDK, I can't publish anything, so I appear to be dead
    in the water.

    I'm trying to figure out how you deal with building debug versions
    of local copies of the Wix repos. Two of the three platforms are
    disabled in Debug mode, yet running tests from VS 2019 in debug mode
    references these other two platforms. I've also found dependencies
    on Debug versions from code in Release versions. Do you publish
    Debug versions the same way you publish Release versions?

    I understand that you now distribute keys to allow developers to
    sign assemblies.

    What does a simple edit/build/test cycle look like?

    How do Debug builds and Release builds of projects intermesh?

    Other than running formal tests, how does the debugger control of
    the Wix process when it is started from a client? Do you have to use
    compiled-in breakpoinits?

    Would it help if I read all the issues? Have these procedural
    changes been hashed out there?

    I'm trying hard to help, but you're not making it very easy.

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