Mail Archives: djgpp/1996/11/08/22:17:44
George Foot wrote:
>
> I have to agree; I was a lowly Dos user, and had to untar some files
> (under Unix) for a BBC Emulator (no, really...) - I didn't know where to
> start. However, what about making the DJGPP-compiled untar utility
> available along with a few quick instructions in a separate .zip? I can't
> remember off the top of my head, but I think I downloaded a few text
> files back in the dark ages before I used DJGPP, to discover which zips
> to download. All it would need would be a line in there saying, "But
> first, get this...".
You have no idea how many users just start grabbing files with no idea
of what they need to get, without even bothering to read the readme
file. Then they complain here and we have to point them to what was
right in front of them the whole time. :) But IMHO the biggest
argument against using tar is just what you said: most pure DOS users
(who comprise the vast majority of DJGPP users) have never heard of tar,
and wouldn't know what to do with an untar program if it read its own
instructions out loud on their PC speakers. OTOH, pkzip/unzip is well
known enough for most people to figure it out.
It's not that I wouldn't like to see the archives in tarred format; I
just don't think it would "sell."
> Not that I really understand tar anyway, but those compression ratios
> look good... maybe you could just tar the source files? People who are
> interested in the source code of the compiler are more likely to know
> what they're doing with tar anyway.
That's not such a bad idea. After all, if they get the source, then
they probably already have at least djdev, which contains djtar. :)
Tar is really neat, but the reason it gets good ratios is not because it
does any compression itself, but because it's much more efficient to
compress a single tar file than lots of untarred ones. I imagine you
would get similar (but not identical) results if you took one of the
distribution .zip files and re-zipped it. I have known this to reduce a
zipfile's size by several percent.
> If the proposition is to tar the source, then zip it up, why not tar it,
> then zip it along with untar.exe (or whatever) and instructions?
djtar comes with djdev20*.zip, so if they get that they get a suitable
utility.
> What happened to the installer, anyway? I remember seeing here long ago a
> thread on this topic... to me, it seems a good idea. DJGPP seems to have
> moved from being a Unix-style compiler with warnings in the readmes
> saying 'don't even consider learning to program on this' to a friendly
> compiler anyone can use. An installation utility would improve this
> appearance still further.
You aren't mistaken; there was a thread and it led to some very good
thinking on the part of a number of people. The installer is currently
in development by Mark Habersack, and it will work concurrently with an
installation diagnostic utility being developed by yours truly. Both
programs are in alpha right now, but I expect that we will be able to
release code for public evaluation fairly soon.
l8r
--
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| John M. Aldrich, aka Fighteer I | fighteer AT cs DOT com |
| * Proud user of DJGPP! * | http://www.cs.com/fighteer |
| ObJoke: If Bill Gates were a robber, not only would he |
| shoot you, but he'd send you a bill for the bullets. |
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