The Python 2.0 documentation was released as 18(!) different files. There are three different formatted versions (HTML, PDF, PostScript), with two paper sizes for each of the later, and a documentation source package. For each of these variants, three different archive formats are provided. At some point, I'd like to provide HTML Help as well. This has been provided by a volunteer in the past, and may be again (otherwise I get to do it). That's another file (making 19). Does anyone mind if I remove any of these from future releases? Which ones? The .tar.bz2 files are the best compressed, and there are reports that tools are available to handle these on Windows. Would anyone object if I removed the .tgz and .zip archives? -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs Team Member
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 17:40:10 -0400 (EDT), Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
Does anyone mind if I remove any of these from future releases? Which ones? The .tar.bz2 files are the best compressed, and there are reports that tools are available to handle these on Windows. Would anyone object if I removed the .tgz and .zip archives?
I'd say we could at least remove the .tgz in favour of the .bz2 ones (both are "unix formats"). bzip2 _IS_ available for Win32, but if WinZip does not handle bz2, I'd say many users will be unable to handle it. [I do not use WinZip, so don't ask me if it supports bz2. :) ] BTW, I just downloaded the M$ html help workshop and will give the .CHM format a try. You have better things to do. ;) Bye, Jürgen
At some point, I'd like to provide HTML Help as well. This has been provided by a volunteer in the past, and may be again (otherwise I get to do it). That's another file (making 19).
I've already done it. It's at http://alldunn.com/python/py2docs.zip -- Robin Dunn Software Craftsman robin@AllDunn.com http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? http://wxPROs.com Relax with wxPython!
on 10/18/00 4:40 PM, Fred L. Drake, Jr. at fdrake@acm.org wrote: .....
Would anyone object if I removed the .tgz and .zip archives?
I would. If you're on a platform without the latest GNU tools then BZ2 is alien and unusable. Why can't these formats be automatically generated? Fred will have to be more clear as to what exactly is complicated about this. If you do want to get an indication of what format is most useful just look at the download metrics from your server for the respective formats. That would be interesting. -Robin
Robin Friedrich writes:
I would. If you're on a platform without the latest GNU tools then BZ2 is alien and unusable. Why can't these formats be automatically generated? Fred will have to be more clear as to what exactly is complicated about this. If you do want to get an indication of what format is most useful just look at the download metrics from your server for the respective formats. That would be interesting.
The archives are all built automatically from the Makefile, it's just a lot of files. I'll see if I can get download statistics for these. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs Team Member
[Fred]
The archives are all built automatically from the Makefile, it's just a lot of files. I'll see if I can get download statistics for these.
Prior to 2.0 final, the HTML zip and tgz files were most popular, followed by PDF zip and tgz. There were relatively few downloads of bz2 format doc files, and the postscript docs don't show up at all in the summary download stats for September or October. In other words, take your prejudices and turn them inside out <0.9 wink>.
participants (5)
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Fred L. Drake, Jr. -
Juergen Hermann -
Robin Dunn -
Robin Friedrich -
Tim Peters