The REALLY bad thing about Python lists ..

[Steve Holden]

Glyph Lefkowitz wrote:
> 
[SNIP]
> 
> Me - "I've got some more of the code done.  Do you guys want to try it out?"
> Linux User - "Sure.  Do I need python installed?"
> Me - "Type 'python'.  Does anything happen?"
> Linux User - "Yeah, a >>> prompt comes up."
> Me - "OK, just download the software."
> (5 minutes later)
> Linux User - "Got the file; ... what do I do with it?"
> Me - "On the command line, tar xvzf mysoftware.tar.gz, then cd mysoftware; ./run"
> Linux User - "OK, it's running.  Thanks!"
> 
> Windows User - "What do I need?"
> Me - "Well, first you'll need WinZip ... download it from www.winzip.com"
> (20 minutes later)
> Windows User - "OK installed.  What else do I need?"
> Me - "You need Python: go to www.python.org, download it, and install it."
> (20 minutes later)
> Windows User - "Grr.  OK installed.  It asked me about tcl/tk but I didn't install that."
> Me - "No, you need that.  Uninstall and then reinstall and install that too."
> (5 minutes later)
> Windows User - "Augh!  Done.  OK now what?"
> Me - "Download mysoftware.zip, and double-click on it.  That should open up WinZip...."
> 
> (the windows user will almost always become frustrated at this point
> and forget about it, being "just a user" and confused by all this
> high-falutin terminology of "archives" and "virtual machines",
> assuming that WinZip works at all.  I need to build a friggin'
> installer soon so this stops happening.)
> 
Of course, if YOU have WinZip you can build self-extracting distributions,
which
your users can hopefully just run without installing WinZip first.  Or am I 
missing something?

Not that I'd discourage you from builing a friggin' installer, but you might
overcome some early resistance with this halfway-house solution.

regards
 Steve
--
"Bulding information systems just because it's fun."
Steve Holden  sholden at bellatlantic.net  703 716 7275