Distributing the final product

Here we are! The final piece of the journey to developing cross-platform applications is to actually get them deployed to your end users for which they were designed.

If you're familiar with distributing Windows applications, you've probably used an installation building program such as InstallAware or InstallShield to create a self-contained program that extracts itself, asks the user a few questions (such as where to install), creates the destination folder with your app inside, and adds a shortcut icon to either the desktop or the Start menu—or both. My favorite install builder for these types of apps is Inno Setup. This is a widely used free tool and I have not come across any Windows installation task it cannot handle.

Deploying application servers is different than end user apps. Servers are often installed by skilled IT people that set up firewalls, redirect ports, and manage user permissions—they usually prefer to...