Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> I don't think, and I could be wrong here cause I don't follow GTK, 
>> that GTK has ever released a 'long term support' version of their 
>> library.
> 
> Dunno. I wasn't the one that first said "long use stable libraries."
> 

That was the impression I got from the blog, that he thought GTK was 
some sort of stable system. That's also why I put the phrase in quotes.

> It's also kind of odd that he'd be talking about putting Firefox 3 on 
> "production machines" without upgrading stuff. Maybe it's just me, but 
> either your system is working (in which case, why upgrade the UI 
> component) or you have someone's random desktop machine they're using to 
> surf random sites with (in which case why gripe that the package manager 
> downloaded a bunch of packages?).  I mean, lots of businesses (banks, 
> other customer service places, etc) use web browsers to get into their 
> systems, but why would you want to put firefox3 on such a box?
> 

Yeah, that boggled my mind as well. I put firefox 3 on my laptop, cause 
it wasn't doing anything. I waited till I was done with every major 
project and knew my desktop would be free for a week before installing 
it there. Didn't suffer any problems with the migration, but I couldn't 
have afforded the time to restore bookmarks and passwords if I had done 
it during crunch week.

>> All I read in the blog post was "I want to use a older distro that the 
>> package manager maintenance  crew probably aren't supporting anymore,
> 
> Yeah. Good thing agreeing with the guy wasn't my point in giving the 
> example. :-)
> 

Sorry, I read "this is bad and is a reason why technology B is better" 
as a mild endorsement of the bloggers rant.

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>     Here I lose you, just as Darren did. I can only repeat what he said: 
> Your reasoning is valid only if you consider needing a package manager a 
> flaw.

Why mention, at all, the lack of a given feature unless one considers 
that lack to be a flaw?

Regards,
John

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On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:00:57 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> True, you could do that, and override library paths with
>> LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables....But you've just helped me make
>> my case. :-)
> 
> Yeah. Funny how people say "you've just helped me make my case" like
> having a discussion automatically means you must disagree with them. :-)

Well, arguably, part of the premise you started out with was "because you 
can bundle all that stuff in with the application, but Linux doesn't.", 
which is a contrary point of view.... ;-)

Jim

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John VanSickle wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>>     Here I lose you, just as Darren did. I can only repeat what he 
>> said: Your reasoning is valid only if you consider needing a package 
>> manager a flaw.
> 
> Why mention, at all, the lack of a given feature unless one considers 
> that lack to be a flaw?

Because someone earlier had mentioned the lack of a package manager as a 
flaw. I was pointing out that neither lack nor presence of a package 
manager is a flaw.

Here's an idea: don't argue with the person making the statement when 
they tell you what they intended the statement to mean. Feel free to 
misinterpret the statement when it's poorly worded, but when 
clarification is forthcoming, to insist that your interpretation of what 
the person meant to say is somehow more accurate than what the speaker 
intended to say is counterproductive.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:00:57 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> True, you could do that, and override library paths with
>>> LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables....But you've just helped me make
>>> my case. :-)
>> Yeah. Funny how people say "you've just helped me make my case" like
>> having a discussion automatically means you must disagree with them. :-)
> 
> Well, arguably, part of the premise you started out with was "because you 
> can bundle all that stuff in with the application, but Linux doesn't.", 
> which is a contrary point of view.... ;-)

Note the difference between "could" and "does."  I even said "(You 
probably could, but generally don't)" in the original post.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> Sorry, I read "this is bad and is a reason why technology B is better" 
> as a mild endorsement of the bloggers rant.

It was my bad for getting the follow-up to a conversation into the wrong 
newsgroup. A completely reasonable misinterpretation of my intent on 
your part, yes. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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(to be noted at first: now I think I've managed to say what I ment 
earlier, therefore the conversation seems a lot healthier now)

Darren New wrote:
> 
> It's not. It's a link repository. :-)  I think if you actually wanted to 
> *store* all the software ever written for Windows, you'd be looking at 
> an even larger expenditure.

Well yes, it can be thought as one, but... It's a universal search 
engine, it gets up *loads* of other stuff also - even when you search 
for software. Granted, with the correct search terms the software you 
want is usually at the top of the list.

> 
> It's ... pretty trivial to do that sort of code these days. Not really 
> much practice, unless you've never done that sort of thing before. :-)

I've *never* coded any Windows -based software (unless you count Excel 
macros - I don't), neither anything with GUI. So yes, a pretty basic 
practice.

>> Yes, there's still problem of getting software to the reposity.
> 
> If you can standardize the formats coming in, it wouldn't be hard. Just 
> put the "browse" button in.

Nah, I mean actually to get the software publishers to actually post 
theier software/link to the repository...

> Next up: let the owner of the software take it down. Hire lawyers to 
> defend you against people uploading illegal software. Etc.

...because of this. As I said, having a totally open system would have 
it's own negative points.

>> Actually I don't recall seeing one even once. I'm getting more and 
>> more sure that we are mostly using different software on Windows ;).
> 
> It certainly sounds that way.   I don't tend to install a whole lot of 
> ametuer-ware. Some, but not a lot.  

Same here - I install a Windows -software[1] when one is really needed.

[1] I practically use Windows only at work, which clearly is not a 
playground. I do have Windows XP installed on my own laptop, but only 
for a couple of games.

> Mostly little utilities more than 
> packages complex enough to need something like .NET.

Most of the .NET -software I've installed are actually very specific to 
  the job they're ment to do.

>>> Fair enough. And sure, having a nice interface to a repository in 
>>> that sense is a good thing. 
>>
>> Yep, it would be freaking great IMO ;).
> 
> Go for it. ;-)

I... I... I don't think I need to anymore. Thanks Nicolas.

> So, you think sourceforge.net doesn't have financial difficulties? :-) 

Ah yes, storing all the software surely does cost money, you're right. I 
misread the free being also something else than free of cost.

> And, honestly, I think there's *tons* more (admittedly crappy) software 
> for Windows than Linux. 

Possibly, but there's still tons and loads of free software for Linux, 
which should pick up the problems, even in slighter mode.

> There's lots of decent software in Linux. There's *tons* of crappy 
> software for Windows, and no good way of sorting out which is which.

True that. And it's somehow sad that there actually is a lot of crap 
easily available for Windows, when most of that crap is crap because 
it's done poorly.

> Now, if you ran a "windows repository" that had only the well-written 
> utilities, I'd pay to access that. :-)

Sounds like a business idea :-).

But no, I don't have time to evaluate all the software. But the system 
could inhold a users preference -section to maintain some information of 
the level of the software.


> Well, repackaged. If all you get is "setup.exe" and everything's wrapped 
> up in that, you're going to have trouble distributing it yourself in a 
> package manager. Or if you get dozens of files as on a CD, you'll also 
> have a bit of trouble there. 

Well... possibly. The system could do what the user normally does (get 
the package and either run it or uncompress it and run the given file 
from that location).

> I guess you could do what RPMs do, and wrap 
> up everything with a script that runs afterwards to put stuff in the 
> right place and register it in the registry. 

That could be possible too.

> Kind of a bummer if it's an 
> old setup.exe that reboots your machine at the end of the setup, before 
> your package manager can record its successful installation.

True :).

> I'm sure if you took 500 Windows packages that you can download right 
> now, you'd find at least 100 you'd need to rework in some way to make 
> them register their presence in *your* package manager. :-)

That's possible, but the count can vary anywhere between 0-500, by the 
selection of the packages :P.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> 
> Are you guys talking of something like this?
> http://www.nabber.org/projects/appupdater/

Yes, thank you.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> 
> If you use the official AppStore, yeah, your program better include
> everything it needs. If you use Cydia (basically Debian APT for iPhone),
> lots of software is dynamically linked there :)

Go ahead. Write a software which has dependencies and try to market and 
sell it and get some profit of it. If you'll promise it'll work on 
iPhone, it has to *work on iPhone*. Otherwise (at least part of) the 
buyers will complain.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:57:07 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Note the difference between "could" and "does."  I even said "(You
> probably could, but generally don't)" in the original post.

Yeah, but saying "Linux doesn't" says that no distribution does, but 
clearly that's not true.  Particularly the small distros will do this.

Jim

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