> With java most of these issues become a configuration issue after > deployment on the target machine and by writing your code to be > customizable at deploy time most of these issues disappear. > This addresses part of it. For example, we make liberal use of properties files to externalize configuration settings. However, it is not always clear to deployers which settings they have to look at and change, which they may want to "approve", and which they may only wish to be aware of. Documentation gets you part way, but in practice, it seems like some type of pre- or post-install script that "knows" which properties are critical and forces the deployer to acknowledge them would very useful.
The other half of the problem has to do with addressing integration issues. This is true for pure Java (e.g. make sure all required classes are in the classpath) as well as between Java and non-Java programs (e.g. is the right version of Oracle installed). I am guessing that those on this list have had to deal with this issues as well. We'll be looking at commercial options like ZeroG's InstallAnywhere, but I was hoping for an Open Source solution :-) Thanks! Ramon
