This repo fails to build/load in Visual Studio 2019

[rainersigwald]

I got a report of a failure to build this repo, so I wanted to make y'all aware of the problem.

If you try to load Rubberduck.sln (or any individual project) in Visual Studio 2019 (Preview), it will fail. This is because Sunburst.NET.Sdk.WPF/1.0.47 isn't compatible with 2019. From SunburstApps/MSBuildSdks#1, it sounds like Rubberduck should consider migrating to a different approach.

As mentioned there, one option is to wait for .NET Core 3.0 and its associated SDK, which will support WPF projects. But that's not yet released.

[Vogel612]

Thanks for reporting this. As it stands, I think waiting for .NET Core 3.0 is the thing we want to do. We spent a lot of time to get the csproj files to the "new csproj" format, removing the Sunburst Sdk would imply at least partially reverting that effort.

Sunburst was initially intended as a crutch until the new csproj format supported WPF and WinForms builds correctly, as such this issue is a useful reminder to pay off that particular technical debt :)

[bclothier]

As far as I understand it, we cannot use 2019 unless we change the SDK used. OTOH, once we update the SDK, we cannot use 2017 anymore.

The .NET Core 3 and 2019 are already officially released for some time.

So question now is - do we want to move forward on this and require use of 2019 going forward?

[zspitz]

@bclothier

once we update the SDK, we cannot use 2017 anymore.

Can you clarify? It's possible to create .NET Framework projects that use the new SDK-style format.

[bclothier]

We already are using the SDK style. The limiting factor is the ability to use WPF & WinForms, which .NET Core enabled support for in version 3 and is not backported to Visual Studio 2017. We were able to transition to SDK format earlier because we used Sunburst SDK which had support (sort of) for WPF & WinForms without requiring us to go to 2019. To use .NET Core 3 and thus get support for WPF/WinForms, it must be on Visual Studio 2019.

[retailcoder]

Has it been confirmed that VS2019 can actually build Rubberduck? If so, then all we need is a pull request to make it happen.

[bclothier]

I already have a branch that i have not yet pushed building using the extra SDK and it can build 2019 just fine. I need to test it on 2017, however and handle some other mysterious warnings ref.

Using extra SDK might be sufficient to allow us to support both 2017 and 2019, but that needs to be tested.

[mansellan]

FWIW, I don't see the need to support 2017 any more, 2019 seems plenty stable.