NuPack, OpenWrap, and CoApp – A Roundup on Package Managers for .NET/Windows

Microsoft has released NuPack CTP 1, an open source package manager for .NET. OpenWrap is another package manager for .NET with many similarities and some differences. CoApp is a package manager for Windows featuring updates and support for multiple languages like C, C++, .NET, PHP, Python, Perl.

NuPack

NuPack is offering the ability to add .NET libraries to VS projects through a visual interface or a command line. Basically, NuPack relieves the developer from cores like finding the right package, downloading, verifying the hash, unzipping, adding a reference to the library, and editing the web.config files. Instead of all those manual steps, the developer will chose a project from the NuPack Package Gallery from within Visual Studio, and NuPack will download the package along with all its dependencies, and will install it, adding all references and editing the web.config file. Those who prefer the command line are able to perform the same tasks from the prompt since NuPack is integrated with PowerShell.

OpenWrap

InfoQ informed on a similar project, OpenWrap, that was announced in May 2010. We wanted to find out how OpenWrap is impacted by NuPack’s release, and what is the overall status of the project, so we talked to Sebastien Lambla, one of its main committers.

InfoQ: How do you comment on NuPack? How does it affect OpenWrap’s development?

SL: NuPack solves a large subset of the problems OpenWrap attempts to solve, but on nearly every implementation detail takes a different approach. It’s good to see some competition in this space, but there’s room for better alternatives and more “opinioned” ways of dealing with the problem of dependency management. OpenWrap has been under development for many, many months and is fast approaching beta status, so we’re going to continue working on it, and it will still be at the core of the next wave of OpenRasta development.

If anything, NuPack’s availability will increase the amount of OSS developers building packages, and while the formats are different, it can only be a good thing. If packages are there, versioning is taken into account, and the whole community can move forward. We’re also pressing on with implementing support for the NuPack packaging format, although it will be clearly marked as a legacy format, and converted upon retrieval.

InfoQ: Are you still planning on continuing development on OpenWrap, now that NuPack, backed by Microsoft, is available?

SL: Yes, absolutely. This changes nothing to our roadmap, except maybe that we’ll add support for their packaging format, as a legacy package, on .net platforms that support the office packaging format in use.

Read more: InfoQ

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