On 4/14/2011 6:56, Warp wrote:
> nemesis<nam### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> I fail to see the advantage of going bonkers providing multiple versions of the
>> same script to support multiple "native" scrpting environments when there are
>> multiple far better offerings than the native stuff that are both a fast and
>> free download and also multiplatform.
>
>    You fail to see the advantage? How about you take the script and just
> run it, without having to figure out what else you need to download and
> install before you can run it. The less steps one needs to run the script,
> the better.

Well, as nemesis says, my intention was to suggest a simple cross-platform 
scripting language (like Tcl or Python) for the script, *plus* do the 
up-front work of wrapping it in a native no-install executable for each of 
the major platforms if you care to promote usage. Distribute both the short 
script and the "use this if you don't want to install the scripting 
environment" version.

My MakeDF3 code[*] is like that.  It's a Tcl script that I run through 
freewrap, so you have MakeDF3.tcl if you want to edit it or you already have 
Tcl installed, or MakeDF3.exe if you're on Windows and you just want to use 
the tool and don't mind that it takes up another meg of disk space.

If you're just writing files and not using a whole bunch of utility 
libraries, writing it in C and asking someone to compile it for each 
platform for you can also work well. Once you start linking in things like 
Windows or Linux packages, that becomes less feasible.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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