Daniel Keep escribió:
> 
> BCS wrote:
>> I guess it's just that an installer that needs anything else (including
>> an internet connection) to install seems utterly pointless to me. In my
>> book an installer is firstly the data to be installed and secondly a
>> tool to configure it. When I download an installer, I want to know that
>> it will work where ever and when ever I have that file. Even if Walter
>> decides to shutdown digitalmars so he can go off and become a monk.
> 
> One thing I should probably have made explicit: the Cygwin setup program
> downloads all packages as you request them, *and keeps a local cache*.
> 
> Let's say you wanted to install D on a machine with no 'net access.
> Grab the installer, put it on a 'net-connected machine, select what you
> want and check a "download only" option.  Then you can archive the whole
> directory for later.
> 
>> Anything worth looking at will do the only things I think a DMD
>> installer should do.
> 
> The only reason I don't suggest putting together a simple installer
> is... I just don't see the point.  Lacking any sort of "bundle-ready"
> IDE or documentation, what would it do?
> 
> I suppose it'd be trivial to knock together something that just extracts
> the archive and sets the PATH.  I just have a very hard time accepting
> that there exist "programmers" THAT lazy and/or stupid.
> 
> Oh to hell with it.

It's not about being lazy!

If you can double click a file and it does all the things for you, why would you want to do it manually?

It's actually a programmers philosophy. If you can write a program that does the things for you, instead of you having to do them manually, why not?

Daniel Keep escribió:
> 
> BCS wrote:
> I suppose it'd be trivial to knock together something that just extracts
> the archive and sets the PATH.

In case you didn't notice, I already did that:

http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/

I don't know why nobody said anything or started talking about how it should be continued. Maybe people like to discuss more and do less. :-P

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> Daniel Keep escribió:
>>
>> BCS wrote:
>> I suppose it'd be trivial to knock together something that just extracts
>> the archive and sets the PATH.
> 
> In case you didn't notice, I already did that:
> 
> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
> 
> I don't know why nobody said anything or started talking about how it should be continued. Maybe people like to discuss more and do less. :-P

I didn't mention it because I object to the lack of proper capitalisation in the name; it must be rewritten!

(Just kidding.)

In that specific sentence, I was talking about one that included the DMD archive.  The previous times I talked about downloading the archive, it was in the context of a more complex installer.

Daniel Keep escribió:
> 
> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>> Daniel Keep escribió:
>>> BCS wrote:
>>> I suppose it'd be trivial to knock together something that just extracts
>>> the archive and sets the PATH.
>> In case you didn't notice, I already did that:
>>
>> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
>>
>> I don't know why nobody said anything or started talking about how it
>> should be continued. Maybe people like to discuss more and do less. :-P
> 
> I didn't mention it because I object to the lack of proper
> capitalisation in the name; it must be rewritten!
> 
> (Just kidding.)

lol :)

I always have troubles with naming things for D:

Dinstaller?
DInstaller?
dinstaller?
DeeInstaller?

Grrr...

> In that specific sentence, I was talking about one that included the DMD
> archive.  The previous times I talked about downloading the archive, it
> was in the context of a more complex installer.

The nice thing about the installer downloading it is that digitalmars.com could provide a page that links automatically to the latest zips, and the installer could point to that address.

Hello Daniel,

> BCS wrote:
> 
>> Hello Daniel,
>> 
>>> One thing I should probably have made explicit: the Cygwin setup
>>> program downloads all packages as you request them, *and keeps a
>>> local cache*.
>>> 
>>> Let's say you wanted to install D on a machine with no 'net access.
>>> Grab the installer, put it on a 'net-connected machine, select what
>>> you
>>> want and check a "download only" option.  Then you can archive the
>>> whole
>>> directory for later.
>> A "bundle everything" installer can't be that much harder to build,
>> how about make one of each?
>> 
> Oh, it'd definitely be easier.  *However*
> 
> Daniel Keep wrote:
> 
>> But technically, the people who download it then can't redistribute
>> it. I just think it's simpler to have the installer download the zip
>> file itself and avoid the problem in its entirety.
>> 
> One big download is technically simpler, but not legally.  :P

I am assuming that Walter would host the file and there would be nothing stopping him from distributing such a file.

> I don't want to have to put up a big "Download D!" link and then have
> a block of small print below it saying "By the way, you're not legally
> allowed to redistribute this installer, host it anywhere, mirror it,
> etc." and then have to explain why.
> 

I would assume most non FOSS stuff can't legally be redistributed even if it can be downloaded at no cost.

> For reference, here's the applicable snippet of the license:
> 
>> The Software is copyrighted and comes with a single user license, and
>> may not be redistributed. If you wish to obtain a redistribution
>> license, please contact Digital Mars.
>> 
> Maybe we could work out a license with Walter for the installers which
> allows them to be arbitrarily redistributed provided the installer is
> unmodified?  Then we can show the DMD license itself as part of the
> install process.

I strongly suspect that Walter would be just fine with that. Particularly if it's limited to an ad-hoc bases (e.g. download it and e-mail it around the office)


> *sigh*  I've already started trying to whip the language docs into
> shape for building into a CHM.  I found CyberShadow's CHM stuff
> <http://thecybershadow.net/d/docs/> which will make a good starting
> point.

sweet

> I want to remove the cruft around the content (such as the DigitalMars
> navigation) and give it a minor facelift (look at some nicer fonts,
> maybe a little bit of visual bling).

The Phobos repo on dsource contains the DDoc source for the full docs, you should be able to patch its ddoc.conf file to generate whatever you want. As a fridge benefit, it would make updating the results to new versions more automatable.

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> For the initial version, I'd be happy if it downloaded the zip file, unzipped it, and set the path.
> 
> Here:
> 
> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
> 
> (I just put it there because I didn't know where else)
> 
> Maybe this can be used as the initial source code for the project...

Thanks. But I am totally unfamiliar with nsi files, etc. Is there a makefile or build.bat file?

Walter Bright wrote:
> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> For the initial version, I'd be happy if it downloaded the zip file, unzipped it, and set the path.
>>
>> Here:
>>
>> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
>>
>> (I just put it there because I didn't know where else)
>>
>> Maybe this can be used as the initial source code for the project...
> 
> Thanks. But I am totally unfamiliar with nsi files, etc. Is there a makefile or build.bat file?

Even if there were one, you'd need to install NSIS to compile them. It's a language by itself.

Why do you need to compile it? There's an exe there. :)

Reply to Ary,

> Walter Bright wrote:
> 
>> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>> 
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> 
>>>> For the initial version, I'd be happy if it downloaded the zip
>>>> file, unzipped it, and set the path.
>>>> 
>>> Here:
>>> 
>>> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
>>> 
>>> (I just put it there because I didn't know where else)
>>> 
>>> Maybe this can be used as the initial source code for the project...
>>> 
>> Thanks. But I am totally unfamiliar with nsi files, etc. Is there a
>> makefile or build.bat file?
>> 
> Even if there were one, you'd need to install NSIS to compile them.
> It's a language by itself.
> 
> Why do you need to compile it? There's an exe there. :)
> 

So he can make generateing new versions part of the build process.

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Thanks. But I am totally unfamiliar with nsi files, etc. Is there a makefile or build.bat file?
> 
> Even if there were one, you'd need to install NSIS to compile them. It's a language by itself.
> 
> Why do you need to compile it? There's an exe there. :)

Yeah, well, it needs to be rebuilt for every new release.

Why does it need to set registry keys?

BCS wrote:
> Reply to Ary,
> 
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>>> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>>>
>>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> For the initial version, I'd be happy if it downloaded the zip
>>>>> file, unzipped it, and set the path.
>>>>>
>>>> Here:
>>>>
>>>> http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/descent/dinstaller/
>>>>
>>>> (I just put it there because I didn't know where else)
>>>>
>>>> Maybe this can be used as the initial source code for the project...
>>>>
>>> Thanks. But I am totally unfamiliar with nsi files, etc. Is there a
>>> makefile or build.bat file?
>>>
>> Even if there were one, you'd need to install NSIS to compile them.
>> It's a language by itself.
>>
>> Why do you need to compile it? There's an exe there. :)
>>
> 
> So he can make generateing new versions part of the build process.

But for that the only thing he need to do is to tell us URLs for the latests zip files to download. Then the installer points to those URLs and it never needs to change.

Of course he'll need to repoint the URLs to the latest zip files.