Clarence Verge wrote:
> I don't see why no one is trying my GETnLOAD.zip. :
> I can't tell if there are any user interface problems if no one complains. <G>
> 'Course, I won't enjoy them any more than Michael does. ;-)
I can speculate, from your description, a major problem with GETnLoad:
Your utility appears to operate at the file level, overwriting one file
with another, if certain conditions are met. New and old setup files tend
to differ from each other, internally, line by line. A newer file most
often contains additional lines, the older file did not or - less frequently-
contains older lines that have been altered by renaming a variable, etc.
An adequate upgrade facility, at minimum, scans a new and old setup file
line by line. It adds new lines from the new file, and presents changed
lines to a user, who decides to use the new or old version of a line, or
manually edit a changed line. This is the basic modus operande of
the ``reconcile'' utilities that are part of source code change
control systems. These systems, let several people work on the same
file at the same time. When one tries to check in a file, one must
``reconcile'' it, line by line, with the last checked in version.
There is at least one dos freeware utility, that lets you create a
reconciled file, line by line from a new and old one: File Compare
by John Whitney. I think I will try using this utility on the next
upgrade of arachne. Interested parties can grab it at Simtel:
http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/fileutil/vc152.zip
For any such utility to work well, the author of upgrades, with minimum
effort, should make sure the order of old lines is retained in new
versions, and that changing parts or words of an old line is minimuzed.
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