Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Eli Zaretskii]

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> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:13:39 +0200
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>, Johannes Weiner <address@hidden>,
>       address@hidden
> 
> "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > David Kastrup wrote:
> >>>>> Why don't you use perl for example instead?
> >>>> Chicken and egg.  Installation scripts have to rely on what is there.
> >>> But you can build exectutable from perl scripts, or is not that
> >>> possibility there any more?
> 
> We needed a single executable for making installations and upgrades as
> simple as possible for customers (they'll break everything otherwise).
> A self-extracting batch file is doable reasonably well (once unzip.exe
> has been installed).  Appending an archive to a .exe file is not as
> feasible, in contrast.
> 
> >> It means pulling in a lot of external technology for just a simple
> >> scripting job.  Why should we do that if what is present in Windows
> >> is so great?
> >
> > I guess you know perl, of course. I might misunderstand what you are
> > actually doing. There is vbs too and different installation
> > software. But let us drop this, I just wanted to give a suggestion.
> 
> The main point is that we needed something we can support and that does
> not deviate too much in functionality from our existing supported code.
> Pulling in entirely different external technology just for installation
> was not an option when "everything is there".
> 
> > I agree this is a weak and disturbing point on w32, escpecially when
> >you are used to have powerful scripting languages available. This is
> >however not what w32 programmers use.
> 
> Whatever.  After wasting in the order of manyears on this endeavor, we
> have reverted to GNU/Linux installs.  People insisting on Windows get a
> virtual machine.
> 
> I don't think I know of any multi-platform free software project where
> the Windows port is not responsible for the most hair-tearing and
> frustration.
> 
> -- 
> David Kastrup
> 
> 
>