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

[Stewart Gordon]

On 22/12/2011 17:27, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
<snip>
> IIRC it's possible to just open the ZIP archive as a regular folder with the built-in
> support.

It's possible to open the zip so that it looks superficially like a regular folder.  And 
in doing so you can browse the files in the zip, copy them to somewhere else like regular 
files, and put files into the zip as if it's a folder.

But IIRC you can't open and re-save files within the zip in-place.  Nor can you view the 
zip in arbitrary apps as a regular folder, because this zip support is part of Explorer 
and not of the OS's implementation of the overall file system.

And I've found it to be very slow.  People are bound to look for something faster.  And in 
doing so, might get 7z support as a bonus, thereby increasing the time saving further if 
only we added a 7z format DMD package.

Indeed, it's probably for the better that the system doesn't try too hard to make zips 
behave like regular folders, as to do so would cause frustration when people try to use 
them as such and realise how slow it is.  Disk compression utilities (such as Stacker and 
DriveSpace - what happened to these?) differ in a number of ways to compensate, which 
makes them unusable for packaging software for distribution.  And even when used for what 
they're for, these utilities have their drawbacks.

Any implementation of data compression that tries to make a compressed volume look like a 
regular disk, or an archive look like a regular folder, is an abstraction.  And 
abstractions leak.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html

OK, I know programming languages are abstractions too....

Stewart.