Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah NuGet package should be marked as a development-only dependency

[sean-rose]

The Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah NuGet package is not currently marked as a development-only dependency, so if a project using that package is itself being packaged then SlowCheetah will be included as a dependency unless the project's SlowCheetah package reference is manually designated as a development-only dependency by adding developmentDependency="true" for packages.config or <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets> for newer SDK-style projects.

It would be better if the SlowCheetah package were marked as a development-only dependency by default by having <developmentDependency>true</developmentDependency> in the package metadata, and since NuGet/Home#4694 has been resolved it would be easy to implement.

[StingyJack]

I don't want it marked as dev dependency, I want to use xdt transformations in a program, not just as build time.

I already have to reference the assembly manually as the package doesnt have a lib folder and only adds statements.

I would think that nuget bringing it into a project when its only referenced by targets is a problem with NuGet.

[sean-rose]

@StingyJack Marking the SlowCheetah NuGet package as a development-only dependency shouldn't affect what you're doing. That setting would only apply when creating NuGet packages from projects which reference SlowCheetah, or as the docs say it would "prevent the [SlowCheetah] package from being included as a dependency in other packages."

That aside, SlowCheetah is specifically for doing config transformations at build time (as you found it's packaged as a tool, not a library) so I'd think something like Microsoft.Web.Xdt might work better for your use case of doing transformations at run time.

[CZEMacLeod]

@sean-rose @davilimap I also use Xdt in my application.
Is Microsoft.Web.Xdt on GitHub now or is it internal to Microsoft. The nuget package was update 3 months ago, but the project URL is https://xdt.codeplex.com/ and the description has a link to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465326.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396 which seems to be over 5 years old!
Is the documentation (going to be) moved to the new docs.microsoft.com?
Where are the release notes and changes for the last update?

[sean-rose]

@CZEMacLeod I don't know about the Microsoft internal stuff, but I compared the recent Microsoft.Web.Xdt 2.1.2 package with the previous 2.1.1 package and it looks like it's mainly just metadata changes:

• Assembly version is now 15.0 rather than 2.1 (which seems odd since it no longer matches the package version).
• "aspnet" added as owner.
• License URL updated.
• Project URL added (though as you pointed out it's to CodePlex, which is in archive mode).
• NuGet tags added.

I also compared the disassembled code, and while there are some differences they look functionally equivalent, so I think maybe that's just a newer compiler making slightly different optimizations.