[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
In the "old days", you had crappy, grossly-unstable OSes like DOS/Windows, or Windows 9x (still DOS-based, essentially). OSes that didn't care if you overwrote key system files (that shouldn't be) or installed drivers that are incompatible with other drivers. I could go on and on about the shortcomings of the M$ OSes prior to WinXP, but this isn't the forum for such, and, frankly, I've better things to do.

Pah, so? It's my computer. If I want to install incompatible drivers and arbitrarily delete things at whim, I can do that. Certainly this won't happen when installing a program this way, since everything goes in the program's own directory. That means the only way a system file or driver that's "incompatible", and I use this word in quotes for a reason, gets overwritten, is when *I* choose to overwrite it!

Just as an example, in the *OLD* days, and it's still true on Linux, when you wanted to delete something, you deleted it, and it went away. Now, Windows tries to pretend it's smarter than you are, and tells you that you CAN'T delete it, blah, blah, blah, because it's in use, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm supposed to care. So what if a program malfunctions as a result? Clearly, if I'm ordering the deletion of the file, I'm aware of the consequences of doing so, and simply am not concerned that some program, which I undoubtedly didn't like anyway, or I wouldn't be deleting its files, will break. In fact, that's the entire point!

And grossly unstable my ***. DOS NEVER CRASHES! Never! Ever! Programs crash. DOS doesn't. Same cannot be said for Windoze!

The short answer as to what the big deal is today with needing a sophisticated installer can be summed up in two words: Windows Registry. The long answer involves *why* this is important, and an entire college-level course on the subject can be taught.

Pah. The Windows Registry is a pile of crap. Linux doesn't have a registry that programs arbitrarily write crap into, and programs in Linux instead use something called a "configuration file"! What a novel concept, that items pertinent to the program are written in a file in the program's own directory, instead of all other the place! Amazing how such a simple concept works so well.

Since, AFAIK, you (Norfleet) aren't a sofware engineer, much less have extensive knowledge of Windows OS internals (there are many books on this subject alone), nor ever actually wrote an installer for a modern Windows application, you really have no business judging that which you know zilch about.

Pah. You think I've never programmed anything? I program lots of stuff....and it installs by UNZIPPING OUT OF A FILE! Amazing how such a simple and ancient concept works so effectively, even in the day and age where people needlessly add points of failure to what is otherwise a simple operation.

Case and point: I've installed Dom2 perfectly fine by simply unzipping it out of a zip file, from when I packaged my previous directory and shuffled it off to another computer. Amazingly, it works. So why do we need an wonky installer? Pah! If it really had that many files, there was an ancient method called "INSTALL.BAT". Once again, no wonky executables, and if you wanted, you could open it up and do it manually!

Of course, knowing you to be the cantankerous old curmudgeon that we're so fond of, that most assuredly would never stop you from doing so.

Us cantankerous old curmudgeons have this annoying habit of remembering that in the old days, these problems didn't exist, and why they didn't occur.

[ July 19, 2004, 00:17: Message edited by: Norfleet ]