On Monday, 9 November 2015 at 23:07:57 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
Rust has a nice way to download at
https://www.rust-lang.org/downloads.html for Posix:
$ curl -sSf https://static.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh | sh -s --
The method is simple and transparent. An optional
--channel=beta or --channel=nightly parameter chooses between a
stable release (default), beta, or nightly build.
Should we do something similar?
Andrei
I also think curl | sh is bad, but the idea to have a quick
no-brain "just works" installation is great. One good step would
be providing packages for all major distros and providing a wget
| pkginstall command which effectively does the same thing: wget
DMD.deb && dpkg -i DMD.deb for Debian/Ubuntu
For example, newbies to Ubuntu might not even know what dpkg is
so they will not know what to do with a .deb file since their
world consists of apt-get mostly. Many people also don't know
what x86 or x86_AMD64 stand for so yet another doubt in a
potential downloaders mind.
Could then combine this with OS detection through user-agent on
the website and show the user the most likely option and
command-line suggestion.
Another thing I would do is not show LDC and GDC in the front
page but have a "other options" sort of thing. People are afraid
to fail and each decision is a potential failure that will scare
new people off. The idea is that people that already use D know
where to find the other compilers and more importantly what they
are, but someone that does not use D might get intimidated by too
many choices they don't have the knowledge to make confidently.
If in doubt, A/B test it. :)
