Why isn't DSSS ('s net portion) more widely used?

[torhu]

Robert Fraser wrote:
> DSSS seems like a great tool, but only a very small subset of available D libraries are installable via it. I can see it turning into something like CPAN, where you can easily get a module and its required dependencies, without really having to worry about version compatibility, etc, etc. Any ideas on why it's not more widely used?

For us Windows users, tools like these are a bit foreign.  Probably in 
part because they are command line based, and windows is a bit limited 
in that department.  But I also like to know exactly what I'm 
downloading, where it's installed etc.  Any kind of automated 
downloading or installation makes that harder.  But it's probably a lot 
easier once you've gotten used to the tool, be it DSSS or whatever.  I 
just don't see it as worth the brain power right now.  Maybe I never 
will.  On linux, where the command line is the natural command center, I 
might have used dsss all the time, who knows.

Just having all D related downloads under D:\zips\programming\D\ on my 
HD is great, because I can just browse that folder if I can't remember 
the name of a tool or library I know I used a year ago.  It's all very 
basic and human-friendly.  Taking the time to figure out how to use a 
new debugger seems a better investment of time, I already know how to 
download files and how to build D apps without much trouble.

The only library I work on is DAllegro.  It's built by bud (considering 
switching to just batch files) on windows and gnu make on linux and OS 
X.  Maybe I'll make it retrievable through dsss net, but it seems wrong 
to require a language-specific build tool for something that's so simple 
to build.  But the download part could be a way to get more linux people 
to try it out.  Of course, having to still download the required C 
library to link with might defeat the purpose.  But maybe DSSS can do 
that to?

I don't mean to bash on dsss, I'm just explaining why I'm not using it 
myself.  Except for building Tioport SWT and tangobos, that is.  I wish 
people would explain to me why they don't use DAllegro, but I'm guessing 
the answer is "SDL for teh win".  So be it.

Maybe if DSSS' net feature was hooked up to dsource.org somehow?  It 
could download the autogenerated zips of specific revisions of the 
projects.  For all I know, this is already possible.