Re: ROTunes v0.08 now available to download

In message <db20dafa4d.druck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
druck <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 17 Feb 2006 Tim Hill <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <527eb6fa4d.druck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, druck
<news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 17 Feb 2006 Segfault <usenet-nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <4dfa899026tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tim Hill
<tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[Snip]

Installers, yes. Packages, no.

Pedantry. To a user the difference is?

Absolutely none. The user just wants to be able to download some
software, unpack it and install it in the easiest way possible. Whether
that looks like what they're used to, or is different doesn't really make
a lot of difference.

The difference is absolutely enormous.

To a programmer or those who understand maybe. But to a user?

Well for sake of arguement, just how dumb a user do you want to pretend to
be? If you want to be the sort that doesn't have the slightest inclination to
know anything how their computer works, and just get by by clicking on the
next and ok buttons, then we might as well stop now, and you can go off and
use Windows.


Surely Mr/Mrs./Ms. Bloggs just wants to do just that - if ROS wants to have
"mass appeal" the the absolute novice is the target. I've always believed
that one of the great benefits of ROS is that one doesn't have to know
what's going on inside, or rather didn't.

[Snip how they differ]

Un snipping for a second. A package manager has a very specific and limited
roll, on RISC OS for example it would examine the !Run file of the
application you've downloaded and ensure you have the correct versions of the
SCL and toolbox modules, if you don't it would fetch them from the Castle and
ROL websites and put them in the standard location in !System.

An installer on the other hand, getting past all the visual frippery, can and
will do just about anything it feels like, reflecting the authors ideas of
how you should be using the application and machine, rather than letting the
owner of the machine make the decisions. This results in all sorts of
unwanted side effects, we all know and hate from Windows installers such as
scattering shorts cuts all over the desktop and stat menu which you spend
weeks discovering and deleting.

Agreed - definately. If there were a free vote on the subject of "just
doing things" I'd have to vote against, as bitter experience has shown
me that updating modules for the benefit of one app has broken
another (or three) and knackered the machine. A "put things back exactly
as they were" option would be needed. If, however, the installer/package
manager checked all apps on the machine first and then reccomended a
solution, that would be great (I could get it sorted out once and for all),
though it would be somewhat cumbersome process I'd expect. Not least as
the requirements for every package would need to be stored (and indeed
ascertained) by someone.


---druck


Richard

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