Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/06/30/22:48:13
Phil Galbiati (galbiati AT cse DOT ogi DOT edu) wrote:
: First of all, I disagree with the original premise that there are too many
: pieces. Secondly, I disagree with your conclusion that the solution to
: this non-problem is to create an unsupported, feature-reduced,
: documentation-deficient, "EZ" distribution.
I am still in two minds about it myself, and it wouldn't happen soon
anyway, so further opinions either way would be welcome. If it would do
more harm than good then naturally I won't make it.
[snip java solution]
: This solution would produce a minimal installation roughly twice the size
: of what you proposed, but has the advantage that it is easier to maintain
: since the configuration control mechanism resides in a file on DJ's
: server, rather than being built into a distinct zip file with unlimited
: distribution. For example, when a new version of make is released, you
: will have to rebuild your EZ zip, upload it to simtel, and then hope that
: nobody who has a copy of your old zip gives it to a friend since it is no
: longer up-to-date (we still see an occasional post along the lines of "I
: just got EZGCC v1.08 ....."). The only maintenence required for the java
: script solution is that DJ will have to change one line in each script to
: point to the new zip file on simtel.
But that still doesn't stop people handing on the zip files they
downloaded in the past, which could still be outdated and unsupported
versions. Note that we still see posts about version 1, if anything more
frequently than those about ezgcc.
: On 21 Jun 1997, George Foot wrote:
: >
: > FYI, what I did is (approximately):
: >
: > 2) deleted the following directories: gnu, manifest, zoneinfo
: In order to diagnose problems after the NEXT full release, we will need to
: have an accurate manifest in the EZ release. Sooner or later somebody is
: going to do a partial upgrade over an EZ installation, and Eli will be
: pulling his hair out (assuming he still has some) trying to determine
: which versions of which programs are installed on the newbie's system.
Sorry, I didn't make it clear; the mini distribution would have its own
version and manifesto files. Also, there would be no possibility of any of
the basic files being missing.
: > 3) removed all docs except the libc reference, the info docs and the dir
: Distributing binaries without the documentation is at best irresponsible
: and a disaster waiting to happen, especially since one of your goals is to
: have it fit comfortably on a handful of floppies. This is likely to
: generate a plague of questions along the lines of:
: I just received DJEZGPP on floppies and installed it on my system. How
: do I invoke make?
Again sorry if I didn't mention it; the idea was to have separate, easy to
understand documentation showing the most common ways to invoke the
supplied utilities.
: > 4) created a directory called `faq' and put the djgppfaq.txt there
: Given the frequency at which people ignore the 6-page long README.1ST
: file, how many people do you think will read 180 pages of flat-text FAQ?
: Since there are already HTML versions of both the FAQ and the docs
: available, why not include the easier-to-navigate HTML versions rather
: than flat text? The extra space required for HTML tags would be less than
: the space required for the info viewer (which seems to frighten newbies
: anyway), and Web browsers have become pretty much ubiquitous.
The info viewer is required anyway to read the C library reference. I
personally still prefer to use the flat text format of the FAQ even with
the hypertext formats available; I don't have a DOS-based HTML viewer and
for something like the FAQ I prefer to read it (and search it) all at once
rather than in bits. Maybe other people's opinions are different here.
: > leaving the following files out of the distribution:
: >
: > STRINGS.EXE STRIP.EXE STUBEDIT.EXE
: Since two of the most frequently asked frequently asked questions are:
: 1) Why are the executables so big, and
You can still pass the -s switch to gcc even without the presence of
strip.exe
: 2) Why can't I declare a 513 kByte automatic variable
Fair enough. Using stubedit isn't the only solution though; IMHO in these
circumstances it is often better to allocate dynamically.
: > and a "Please please please
: > don't even consider asking on the mailing list if you have trouble".
: This is arguably the most ridiculous part of your proposal. From Section
: 6.12 of the FAQ:
...
: If you are suggesting that the EZ distribution will be unsupported, then I
: think your efforts will be counterproductive. Newbies will find the EZ
: distribution, spend a bunch of time downloading it (even a 2Meg zip file
: takes SOME time), discover a problem, post the question despite your plea,
: and then (assuming Eli can learn to restrain himself and NOT answer the
: question), they will get the response "Download the full distribution".
This is true. The idea, though, was that there should not be any setup
problems. This would leave (1) C language questions (off topic), (2)
problems due to missing utilities (the documentation ought to explain this
clearly) and (3) on-topic questions/comments about DJGPP oddities and
techniques. Whether or not it is possible to eliminate (1) and (2) is a
matter of opinion. If a user reaches the quoted section of the FAQ,
then they must be fairly good at reading documentation.
Anyway, as I said I won't be able to do this any time soon, and still
welcome criticism and suggestions.
--
George Foot <mert0407 AT sable DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk>
Merton College, Oxford
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