Mail Archives: djgpp-workers/1999/04/13/03:05:34
On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 Kbwms AT aol DOT com wrote:
> It is through bitter experience that I warn of the unknown dangers that
> lurk out there. There is simply nothing to be gained by venturing into
> uncharted waters by changing a critical device like autoexec.bat. It is
> better to tell the user what has to be done and let it go at that.
IMHO, if we accept this, the whole idea of the installer is null and
void. After all, we already *tell* the user, and IN SO MANY WORDS,
how to edit their configuration files. And they still fail to do it
right, even when they *do* read the docs. What exactly will be gained
by having a program which tells it yet again? I expect to see the
same amount of complaints and FAQs on c.o.m.d., only this time they
_will_ have an installer to complain about.
Today's users are spoiled by a clickable install.exe that magically
does everything, even reboots if necessary. A program that tells them
to do it by themselves won't have any added value whatsoever, even if
it writes down a tentative autoexec.bat, since this is NOT what they
expect from the garden variety install.exe.
Now, I'm well aware of the potential hazards in making a good
installation program for DJGPP. Why do you think we don't have one in
the first place? The complexities involved, and the danger of
breaking a working system setup are *precisely* the reason why I
refused to write an installation program for the GNU MS-DOS/MS-Windows
CD-ROM when I worked on that. I think all of the people involved in
this discussion have enough experience on their hands to know how hard
this is. (And note that we didn't even begin to talk about systems
like Windows/NT and the surprises of multiple autoexec.bat files in
Windows 98...)
But this is exactly the challenge of writing a good installer: how do
you _handle_ all these complexities in a reasonable way that makes
most users happy. If we think that this undertaking is too dangerous,
let's just quit now and not make the situation worse.
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