Community-maintained installer for D (was: Re: [OT] Andrei writes "The Case for D")

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

BCS wrote:
> Reply to Benjamin,
> 
>> Reply to Walter,
>>
>> Someone in there started a gripe about installers (they doesn't want
>> to have to edit their path). Would you have any objections to (in
>> addition to the current .zip distro) having officially sanctioned
>> .rpm/.deb/.msi distros? Once the infrastructure is in place to build
>> any of them, the rest should be easy.
>>
> 
> p.s. I'm thinking of a setup where someone other than Walter maintains 
> them.

I think that's a terrific idea. It's unlikely that Walter would dislike 
that, but let's hear from him.

People complaining about the lack of a modern simple installer do have a 
point. An installer is like the first impression, and therefore it's 
more important than most long-time users would think.

Cristi Vlasceanu has contributed a .deb packager for D, see 
http://www.dsource.org/projects/phobos/browser/trunk/rpmsrc. I am more 
than a bit disappointed that to this day Walter has failed to integrate 
that work in his build process. I am disappointed exactly because I know 
how important the installer is, something that Walter seems to be 
blindsided to (like most of us he empathizes with needs that he has too, 
but he seldom needs to install the compiler and knows exactly what to 
do, and subliminally assumes anyone would be as content with the 
installation process).

So, it would be beyond great if there was a troika of Windows, Linux, 
and Mac installers. It could actually be entirely automated - a cron job 
could poll ftp.digitalmars.com for new versions and create the installer 
as soon as a new version is posted there.


Andrei