Reddit: why aren't people using D?
Adam D. Ruppe
destructionator at gmail.com
Wed Jul 22 16:51:32 PDT 2009
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 06:27:50PM -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there
> progress on the community project for writing installer for the three
> major OSs?
I think the installation difficulties are the result of poor instructions
(especially on Linux), not anything technical.
The website talks about copying files places. This isn't necessary: the
way it works is to unzip it and go. It doesn't get any simpler, but the
instructions don't really reflect that.
I actually got a private email from a new D user over the weekend talking
about how hard it is on Linux. I replied with my method:
1) Make helper scripts in /usr/bin with this content:
$ cat /usr/bin/dmd
#!/bin/bash
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 /home/me/d/dmd2/linux/bin/dmd $*
2) Download the DMD zip from the changelog page into the path your script
references (/home/me/d in my example).
3) Unzip it.
4) Have fun coding!
(Note you can do something very similar on Windows with a helper .bat file.)
That's how easy installing DMD is, but this guy, and many others, don't
see it that way. I blame this page:
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dmd-linux.html#installation
The Windows page isn't much better.
That is much harder and less clear than it needs to be. I really think
fixing those pages to have simpler, clearer instructions will make the
requests for installers and packages go away.
>
> Andrei
--
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
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