On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Dos-Man 64 <[email protected]> wrote:
> EBIDX is a shape-drawing application that uses the keyboard
> exclusively. This is useful for drawing elipses, diamonds, rectangles,
> circles, etc.
>
> The (astonishingly) small size of this program means that I don't have
> to bother posting the executable. I just post the instructions and
> the source code. Others are encouraged to upgrade the project.
Ah, yes, the fallacy that we have ${YOUR_TOOLS} installed on our computer.
The entire point of software packaging is to allow people to run
software without needing a compiler.
And if you used ANY non-default Pascal libraries, nobody will be able
to use your software, either.
Even KDE has been tauting their new application bundles (wads the
executable, relevant libraries, and resources into one folder - I
wholly expect for some Apple lawyers to show up and ask for their .app
system back, but that's besides the point). My point is that while
everyone else is moving towards making things more streamlined for the
user, you're running in the opposite direction.
I expect for most of the people here to have thought something along
these lines:
"Ah, Pascal. Can't be bothered."
"Eh, probably uses a library I don't want to track down."
"Do I even have Pascal installed?"
"What's the best Pascal interpreter? Nevermind, this isn't important
enough to me to figure that out."
If you really want to gain some awesome skills, learn how to make a
Debian .deb file or a .rpm that can reference the relevant libraries
and interpreters. For such a small project this is massive overkill,
yes, but look at it as an exercise in making the software more
accessible. Perhaps this is just my personal soapbox (I am a Mac-head
for reasons) but you can have the best software in the world, but if
people can't use it, I contend that it's far from the best!
Software should be quick, easy, and fast. Like your blender. Sure,
when you get into it, the blender is a really interesting piece of
equipment with curious buttons and a nice strong motor and sharp
blades, depending on the thickness and cut thereof you can do
different things. But ultimately, it's just a blender, and the less
time you are using it the better it is. I think of computer software
the same way. You want it to be quick, easy, "get in, get it done,
and get out" kind of methodology. We here are all computer
enthusiasts. We love it, we study it, some of us at the expense of
other things. But even an enthusiast can appreciate what I'm talking
about here.
So, to keep with the metaphor, you want to try and make that blender
as easy to use as possible. While I'm sure your Pascal program is
easy to use, it's not easy to install. Metaphorically speaking, it's
freaking hard to plug in your blender.
A few years ago I was big into the Digital Mars D programming
language. It was simple, fast, and really quite beautiful. But it
had massive toolchain problems. It was all but useless without DSSS,
a build system that made makefiles look like a kind of voo-doo ritual
next to a spaceship. It also couldn't make anything interesting
without a competent library, so into the mix comes Tango (what I think
is a better standard library) and DWT, a D re-binding of the SWT
toolkit. Also in the mix was an OpenGL binding I forgot the name of.
But all these things were hard to install. Most painful were Tango
and DWT. Tango had a very complex build system because it essentially
created a partial shared object file that had to be linked against by
all other code because Tango created a run-time. It actually replaced
the Phobos garbage collector and a few other things. DWT needed some
very specific DLL files to link against. Curiously they weren't in
any MSFT MSVC redistributable. I'm not sure where they came from, but
it was hell to track them down.
So eventually (took me about two weeks) I got a full, working
toolchain for D. DSSS, DWT, OpenGL, Tango, DMC, the works. It was
great. So I made a move that would end up making me quite popular. I
taught myself to make NullSoft Scriptable Installer scripts. People
could install a basic D toolchain by literally clicking "next" a bunch
of times. Windows developers love this.
Several versions later Windows Vista took a massive dump on itself and
I lost all Windows capability for quite some time. This is THE reason
I do not develop on Windows platforms any more. (If someone wants me
to, they will pay me. I do not to it for fun). Later on somebody
made another installer system which did more or less the same thing.
But during its peak, I was getting 30 downloads a day for that
installer. Considering the D community had perhaps only 100 people in
it, that's quite amazing! Several people thought I was making it
easier for people to start using D (which was my goal). Some didn't
like that (small communities tend to have a few pills who don't want
change).
But the point of my story is this: you can take any software, even
your Pascal program. Make it easy to install and use, and people will
use it.
I hate to see good code limited by such things as "Oh I don't have a
Pascal interpreter installed right now." If it's a .deb file, people
can work with that. If it's a .rpm file, people can work with that.
If you want to show that you've got mad skills, give them an ebuild
file. :)
So that's my tale. Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not
trying to be rude. I just hope you'll consider making some kind of
way to make your software more accessible to those of us lazy fools
out here. It might not be the right choice, but I think it's worth
taking a look at.
Cheers!
--
Registered Linux Addict #431495
For Faith and Family! | John 3:16!
http://fsdev.net/
http://0x5f3759df.org/
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