Preface

About This Book

Our team of experts from Zero G, with more than 100 man-years of experience in software deployment, worked together in the writing of this book, a massive, collective undertaking that took many months of combing knowledge-base articles, working directly with the developers who created InstallAnywhere, and assimilating feedback from customers around the globe. You can see that in this collaboration, software engineers, product managers, and technical support experts had a big job on their hands. The book that they delivered is concise and intuitive, often hiding the real complexity and power of the software. The chapters ahead contain page after page of fundamental software deployment and installation knowledge that simply can't be found anyplace else.

Of course, you would expect someone who works with these people every day to say something like that. But the truth is that I'm very excited about this software manual, and not just because it is from Zero G. I am excited because it gives software developers access to undoubtedly the most experienced, knowledgeable team of multiplatform software deployment experts in the world.

Don't be surprised if by the time you put this book down, you're already thinking about new ways to tackle software installations, viewing some of your software projects differently, and beginning to use InstallAnywhere in ways you never expected.

How to Approach This Book

The right approach to any learning experience is essential. Any kid in kindergarten can tell you that an afternoon nap makes learning easier. Later, he's likely to discover, as I did, that staying up all night before a final exam in college is not a very good idea and that a class in advanced microbiology is best approached with his girlfriend as his lab partner. Software developers and engineers may not need naps in the afternoon, but learning still requires preparation, time, and the support of colleagues.

The authors have made this book easy to approach and have taken great care to leverage existing computing metaphors and familiar exercise-based lessons, written in plain English, that make sense. As you begin to use this book, you'll notice how it is organized. It is designed in linear coursework steps that are meant to teach new skills methodically in a successive progression from basic to advanced concepts. Each chapter builds upon knowledge imparted in previous ones, starting with an introduction of the InstallAnywhere software in Chapter 1 and ending with specialized custom code tutorials in the final chapters.

Although an experienced engineer may find it easy to follow advanced lessons without having read previous chapters in the book, the best way to learn any new software is to start at the beginning of the manual and work through each chapter from start to finish. As a software engineer, I know that finding time for the continuing education necessary to stay on top of the latest technology trends is often very difficult and reading an entire book can be challenging. The authors have designed this manual with that in mind.

Even if you're an expert engineer, we're confident that a textbook approach to this volume will yield powerful results from InstallAnywhere. A more methodical reading of these pages will arm less experienced users of InstallAnywhere with a solid foundation of knowledge upon which they can start adding intermediate and advanced skills. Whatever the level of skill developers may start with, the result for experts and novices alike is the same: effortless, adaptive learning at their own pace.

It is the adaptive nature of the authors' work that I find among the best qualities of the book. Not everyone learns the same way, and not everyone who buys this book intends to use it for the same purpose. The one thing that was clear to the authors from the outset, however, was that good software manuals are used often and are rarely too far out of reach at a software developer's desk. As this is a reference volume, you'll find that each lesson is complete in itself, which means that you can add this book to the ones you keep handy for troubleshooting and quick answers to your “how to” questions.

How to Use This Book

The authors break down the material in this manual into 21 numbered chapters, each of which should be regarded as a single lesson. Each lesson consists of exercises, concept reviews, or a combination of both, as well as various other learning tools that you'll become familiar with as you read, such as best practices, quick quizzes, hints, and notes.

• Exercise: A chronological explanation of each step involved in solving a problem, presented as a task-oriented activity that can be repeated to reinforce understanding and increase skills. Exercises should ideally be mastered before readers move on to the next chapter.

• Concept review: A study tool that often incorporates minitasks and activities with an examination of a computing principle or metaphor. Concept reviews must be reinforced through actual conceptualization.

• Best practices: The ideal and customary way of doing common tasks, best practices are determined only after having been proven, often through years of hands-on experience.

• Quick quiz: At the end of a chapter, the quick quiz tests your knowledge by posing questions and providing the answers in Appendix J. They reinforce skills learned in the chapter and help you evaluate your progress and identify areas that require further study.

Once you become comfortable with this format, you may decide that you learn most efficiently by first working through the exercises, or you may discover that you like to jump right to the quick quiz at the end of a chapter and then work backward to find the answers. The authors have made this book easy to use, no matter what your personal preference is.

Knowing What to Expect

This manual is used in formal Zero G product training courses that take place on both coasts several times each year. By following the flow of lessons in this book from start to finish, you can duplicate the flow of training that would take place over a period of three days were you to attend an InstallAnywhere training course, also called Zero G University. Don't be disappointed if you take more than three days to get through the manual, however. Zero G University is led by highly knowledgeable InstallAnywhere instructor engineers, who have conducted training courses for years. It's unrealistic to expect the same result without the trainer in the room with you. If you have more time, take advantage of it, and your own training is likely to be a more rewarding experience as a result. If you'd like to find out more about Zero G University, you can go to the Zero G Web site at www.ZeroG.com.

One interesting concept from the three-day training course that you may find useful is that this book can be divided into three distinct parts, one for each of the days of the course itself. The authors chose not to write this distinction into the book, but you may decide to apply three parts to your learning plan as you budget time and determine training priorities. You may even decide that you'd like to concentrate on one or two of the parts in the book that you feel are most relevant to the work you do. There are a lot of circumstances in which a strategy for grouping the chapters in this book will be required. Here's how Zero G does it.

• Part 1 (Day 1) covers Chapters 1 through 9: InstallAnywhere basics and breadth.

• Part 2 (Day 2) covers Chapters 10 through 17: Advanced actions and panels.

• Part 3 (Day 3) covers Chapters 18 through 21: Extending functionality with custom code.

Those who complete the InstallAnywhere Training Course most often note that they are able to produce better-looking, more complex installers in a lot less time. There's no reason why you shouldn't have a similar experience after using this manual. The authors understood with the writing of this book that it had to produce a similar experience, no matter the learning environment. To accomplish this, they identified four goals that the manual aims to achieve for users (and consequently, attendees of the training course).

Acknowledgments

The authors of this book spent many months planning, strategizing, writing, and rewriting to produce this volume. Their dedication and effort must be recognized in the context of the complex materials they assimilated and the fast-paced, frenetic environment of a company like Zero G, where they often had to juggle many large projects in addition to the book writing. They are Robert Brown, Tim Miller, Carrie Smith, Drew Tappan, and Wayne Tombo, and I extend a very special thank you to them on behalf of Zero G for their outstanding work. In addition, many others who are too numerous to name individually contributed ideas,comments, and reviews for this book. We thank them, too, for their contributions, without which this book would not be possible.

Trent Wheeler
San Francisco, California
March 2004

Editor's Note: Trent Wheeler leads the development of InstallAnywhere, Zero G's flagship multiplatform deployment product line. He has also served Zero G in developer technical support as director of technical operations and product management.