Nick Ramirez announced today the availability of a new book focusing on Windows Installer XML authoring. I can't say I've read it yet ( other then skimming the first chapter that's available online for free. ) but I'm going to go out on a limb and say everyone should go ahead and buy it. To put my money where my mouth is, I just ordered it myself.
I don't know if I'm doing Nick any favors or not but here's the way I see it. Let's be honest, how often do we see a new book on installers? Once every 5 - 10 years is my guess. Leslie Easter and Phil Wilson's books were fine but they are very, very old. So just on that alone I give Nick's new book a buy rating.
Seriously, apx $50 ($10 if you are into eBooks ) is chump change when it comes to investing in training. So either break out your credit card right now or go on down to your boss and ask him to sign off on it and let's show Nick that his work is appreciated.
Then feel free to come back here and post your reviews of the book as comments.
3 comments:
eBook came as a PDF - perfect! I can use it at home and at work.
I'm only one chapter in but the writing style is nice to follow (some clever people like to use "clever" and distracting wording) and I've already found the introductory chapter filling in some gaps in my knowledge.
So far it's a good buy.
Yep, I just happen to come across this just now and ordered a copy.
Looking at the 'About the author' page, it is a bit misleading. Nick left Sophos some time ago, and did not write any code for the enterprise software (that is done in th UK) or the enterprise installation (I did that).
However, I look forward to getting the book and seeing how useful it may be.
I originally left this comment over at InstallSite but I'll cross post it here for my readers:
My hard copy ( soft bound ) came in the mail last night and I skimmed through it while watching Monday Night (American) Football.
I haven't read enough to give a full review but my initial impression is that it's not a book that goes really deep into WiX and MSI. It's very praising of WiX and how "easy" ( repeated many times ) it is to write an installer with it.
Given the target audience, this is probably the right tone. It probably has enough information to get a developer a decent head start in creating the installer. But it certainly isn't a "Bible" in terms of depth.
Funny thing is my wife read my blog and complained that I spent $50 without talking to her first. My reply was "I don't think I've ever heard you complain about spending money on books before." She just smiled and let it go.
I'm still glad I bought the book and I need to find the time to read it all the way through.
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