On Friday, 18 June 2021 at 06:14:03 UTC, Martin Nowak wrote:
> Maybe we could recruit someone to replace the dated NSIS installer with a native msi installer.
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15375
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software#Windows
Don't have much of a clue about Windows nowadays, maybe there are more suitable alternatives.
What would be the most suitable alternative in my eyes is for dub, based on tool chain requirements specified in dub.json
, to install and select compilers. Cross platform and cross vendor. I know there are compiler version managers, but I think since dub can check versions of packages and install packages, and can check compiler versions, it is only natural that it should also be able to install compilers.
Above all, it would be just so convenient. This way a compiler upgrade becomes part of your commit history. You can test (beta) compiler releases in a separate branch, resolve deprecations comfortably, have your CI run all tests, all without interfering with main development. You push the change and all team members upgrade their compilers automatically without even noticing it, and certainly without surprises. And any number of years in the future, when you pick up an old project that has been dormant, it still compiles flawlessly because dub downgrades the compiler automatically.
Come to think of it, maybe there should be an additional package category that provides build tools that can be run by dub without dub run
, such as dfmt
, dpp
, pegged
, and compilers and linters.
— Bastiaan.