The Current State of Package Management in .NET

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The Current State of Package Management in .NET

• Danny Douglass 

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What is Package Management?

• A software tool or collection of tools used to
  automate the process of installing, upgrading,
  managing, and removing packages.
•                                          -
  Wikipedia    
•     

Existing Package Management Systems

• Yum (Linux)
• CPAN (Perl) 
• Portage (Gentoo)

• Apt-Get (Ubuntu)
• EasyInstall (Python)
• Gems (Ruby)

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What's so great about Packages?

• Improved SpeedNo longer need to open a browser,
  search for the tool, find the tool download
  location, unzip, reference the correct
  assemblies...
• Reduced Decision TreeLess steps to integrate
  tool Less decisions to make

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What's so great about Packages?

• Managed Dependencies
• Tools dependencies can be packaged with the
  software and handled in a standardized manner to
  quickly identify versioning discrepancies.  Not
  perfect, but a start...
• Simplified Upgrades
• Enabling easier upgrades to tools encourages
  staying close to the latest release.

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Ruby Gems Paved the Way

• Standardized the way software packages are
  installed, utilized, managed, and upgraded in the
  Ruby language.
• Online library of gems on RubyGems.org
• Installs a part of the Ruby language download

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Code Demo

• Using Ruby Gems

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Nu (Nubular) Gems for .NET

• Leverages Ruby Gems (requires Ruby)    gem
  install Nu
• Inspired by the Ruby dependency manager Bundler
• Will offer a Gems site in the near future
• Plans to support all features available in Ruby
  Gems    for example versioning, pre-release
  builds

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Nu for Visual Studio

• Visual Studio 2010 Plugin for Nu(not available
  for 2008 currently)
• Handles downloading of tools and their
  dependencies in Visual Studio

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Code Demo

• Using Nu Nu for Visual Studio

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How do I create a Gem?

• It's as simple as creating a few
• directories and files
• docs all documentation and samples can be placed
  here
• lib stores the project's compiled DLLs for
  distribution
• gemspec Ruby gem specfication file
• version stores gem version

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How do I create a Gem? (cont.)

• Now that the gem components are in place, it's
  time to create the gem itself
•     gem build NameOfGem.gemspec
• With the gem built, the last step is to push the
  gem package to RubyGems.org
•     gem push NameOfGem-semanticversion.gem

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Code Demo

• Creating a Gem for PagedList

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Other .NET Package Managers

• OpenWraphttp//serialseb.blogspot.com/2010/07/int
  ro-to-what-openwrap-is.html
• Horn (HornGet) Obsoletehttp//code.google.com/p
  /hornget/
• Bricks Obsoletehttp//bricksproject.org/

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Contact Information

• Me_at_DannyDouglass.com
• _at_DannyDouglass
• http//DannyDouglass.com