Could we use something better than zip for the dmd package?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
news:jcvmud$2d2h$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg at gmx.com> wrote in message 
> news:mailman.1834.1324571496.24802.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On Thursday, December 22, 2011 06:25:42 a wrote:
>>> Why are you ignoring the statement about 7z having  the same 
>>> accessibility
>>> level as rar? Rar files are not rare and users who can open rar files 
>>> (on
>>> Windows usually with WinRAR or 7zip) can also open 7z files.
>>
>> But not without installing 3rd party software. Windows can handle zip 
>> files out
>> of the box. It can't handle the others. rar would have exactly the same
>> problem as 7z files (though from what I've see rar files are much more 
>> commonly
>> used). We _could_ use a file format other than zip, but then we'd be 
>> requiring
>> that the user download a 3rd party app just to be able to open the file, 
>> which
>> is _not_ the case with zip.
>>
>
> Once again:
>
> 1. "If you're a programmer, or even just a power user, you have absolutely 
> no
> excuse not to *already* have a 7z-capable program [EDIT: such as WinRAR, 
> for instance] installed."
>
> 2. "What the hell programmer is limited to whatever archive support just 
> happens to be
> built into Windows?"
>
> Even *in addition* to all of that, the built-in windows support for zip is 
> *extremely* dummy^H^H^H^H^Haverage-Joe -oriented. Page after page of 
> hand-holding "wizard" *just* to "extract here"? I can't imagine any 
> programmer or power user even being capable of putting up with that for 
> more than a few days before finally just grabbing WinRAR, etc. And I'm not 
> just speculating: Honestly, I've never even known *one* programmer or 
> power user who actually used Windows's built-in zip support.
>

Additionally, sticking with zip-only is like sticking with mp3 for audio. 
Just let them die already! But that's never going to happen if people keep 
offering things in *just* zip or mp3.

You know what gets me about this stuff? People have *no* problem expecting 
others to use multi-core, 64-bit, gobs of RAM, etc., all stuff you have to 
actually go out and buy, and sure, one could perhaps make an argument for 
that (that's completely beside my point here), BUT then expecting people 
(and not just ordinary people, but *programmers*) to upgrade from downright 
ancient *file formats* (ie, software-only) and suddenly there's a bunch of 
"Oh hell no!"