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From: | Brandon J. Van Every |
Subject: | [Chicken-hackers] Re: [Chicken-users] eliminate the Chicken Windows binary distribution? |
Date: | Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:48:41 -0800 |
User-agent: | Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909) |
John Cowan wrote:
As I laid it out on chicken-hackers, there are four groups of potential users: 1) Those who will only install binary packages. 2) Those who will install source with the fetch-unpack-configure-make-install sequence. 3) Those who will install source even if they have to adjust the makefile or even the source code a bit. (This is me.) 4) Those who will install source even if there is no makefile. The question is, how many of these groups are we willing to cut off? I suspect that the answer is different on Windows than on Unix.
We already handle 2) 3) and 4) exceedingly well. They aren't under discussion. Only 1) is.
Of 1), there are 3 subcategories:1a) people who notice that only C:\Program Files\Chicken can be used, and who don't mind 1b) people who notice that only C:\Program Files\Chicken can be used, and who take grave exception 1c) people who don't notice anything is amiss, because they have a C:\ drive and don't tend to customize anything
I'm a 1b) myself. If I saw a binary requiring this, I'd conclude that it's junk. I wouldn't evaluate it any further, I'd move on to the next boutique programming language. My impulse isn't to play with stuff and work around the kinks so I can "have some fun." My impulse is to find production tools that actually work and are well supported. Red flags about support, cause me to dismiss projects.
Requiring a source build wouldn't cause me to dismiss a project, because I'm a DIY open source developer. I presume that's the demographic Chicken is actually capable of reaching. I don't think it's ready to address any other demographic yet.
Cheers, Brandon Van Every
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