On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:29:28 -0500, Mark Sienkiewicz <sienkiew@stsci.edu> wrote:
I very much dislike things that automatically download and install software. An automatic installer may find a different version of a supporting package every time I install software on another machine.
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Here is an example of the scenario I am trying to avoid: Suppose the package foobar asks for "xyzzy > 2.3". On machine Fred, I install foobar on Tuesday. I do not even know that foobar needs xyzzy, so unless I watch the install closely, Fred may have xyzzy 2.4 installed. On machine Barney, I install foobar on Wednesday. I do not know there was a new release of xyzzy overnight, but Barney now has xyzzy 2.5 installed. Six months from now, my user says "YOUR program is broken - it doesn't do the same thing on Fred and Barney". ....
I so totally agree... I work in an IT department with dozens of machines. I am always upgrading and changing machines. It wastes so much time going and searching for dependant packages, downloading and installing them. Asking users on site to upgrade a dependent package seems to be one of the worst things to ever do from my experience. They invariably get it wrong - and blame the developer for their mistake. Maybe it is just me. What I need for myself, is a package manifest, tracking all the packages that I have installed. Then when I go set up on a new machine, I can load the manifest, and the tool will go get me all my packages. So I totally agree with your comments... that is why I am thinking that a GUI could streamline this area. David