Rant

Hi All,
I haven't used Microsoft FP extensions for a while. In fact I haven't used
the Publishing/Deployment tools for over 4 years (they didn't work back
then). They are running on my local network and I use SourceSafe checking in
things as I change them etc.

As you might be aware my host got liquidated recently and I had to redeploy
my web. Initially I just FTP'd my local master web up to my new FP aware
site (6 hours). This got me back up and running. I thought I'd connect with
FP/VI to my new FPe aware host and see how it worked. My first problem was
that I had FTP'd all the _vti_* files up there too and when I connected my
host site seemed to think that all my files were in SourceSafe. As my host
isn't running SourceSafe I couldn't do anything. Hey no problem that's
reasonable I'd transfered all the config files which were only relevant to
my local web/network up to my host's server. Solution: delete all _vti_*
files and then re-apply the server extensions. All worked fine.

I'd like to get my local web *exactly* in sync with my host/remote site to
save any problems in the future.

The first problem is that the deployment/publishing idiot can't understand
that pages on the host/remote site newer than any local pages don't need to
be uploaded. Duh!!

Ok no worries. I'll just upload everything so that everything is in sync.
(another 6 hours)

The next problem is that *occasionally* I had created some files in my web
with notepad or photoshop and FP/VI weren't aware of them. No worries. If
they don't go they don't go but all i have to do is add them to SourceSafe
and they will go next time. Oh No!!! VI/SourceSafe sees them and craps-out.
Then there were times when VI wasn't being co-operative so I changed the
protection on a file from read-only so I could edit in notepad.
VI/SourceSafe sees that it is not read-only on disk so craps-out.
Then there are other situations where VI just doesn't like the look of a
file which is in SourceSafe and checked in and is read-only on disk. The
only way around this is to delete the file from VI and re-add the damn
thing.

This might not seem like a big problem but when the Deployment system takes
1.5 hours to run before it tells you that there is a small problem that you
aren't worried about and then craps-out it is a pain. HEY out of 5000 files
50 unusual ones aren't a big deal but that means running the damn thing from
the beginning for 2 days just to get your web in sync.

I now know why NO big sites let FP extensions/developers anywhere near their
live site.

And now to the point of the rant and where the list might be getting
interested. It takes about 3 minutes to run dirTOxml on my site. I have a
perl script that will convert _vti_cnf files to xml (add 1 minute) and
SourceSafe is scriptable (add 5 minutes) so can be converted to xml. That
makes at most 10 minutes to create an xml representation of all
dir/SourceSafe/meta data for a 50meg site.
Now validate it with schema/relax/schematron/plain old XSLT (5 minutes) and
you get a report of all the files that will cause problems with the Idiot
Deployment Wizard. Compare that with 1.5 hours *bang* problems with another
file!!! Fix it and start again!!! Over and Over again till it works!!! And
that's without actually uploading anything (another 6 hours)

If anyone is using FP or VI and wants to work on this or if Microsoft is
listening then just let me know!!!!!!!!!

Ciao Chris

XML/XSL Portal
http://www.bayes.co.uk/xml


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list