[plt-scheme] Application distribution mechanisms ...

Hmmmm ... haven't thought about creating a .plt file yet.

The "distribution" executable option, I must say, is perfect for
most situations where you don't even want the user to be aware
that the application is written in Scheme.

The question of the runtime + small app package split is more
a problem of compatibility maintenance as I see it. Newer
versions, in that case, cannot break older code and so
it becomes difficult to throw away stuff.

I wouldn't really ask you guys to go out of your way
to officially bring back the older installation method, but it'll be  
nice
to allow us to shoot ourselves in the foot if we want to ...  
unofficially :-P

-Kumar

On 07 Jan 2009, at 9:57 PM, Matthew Flatt wrote:

> At Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:22:16 +0800, kumar wrote:
>> However, for those who *do* have DrScheme installed, it'll be nice to
>> have a distribution mechanism that isn't as big as options 2 or 3.  
>> It'll
>> be awesome if we can install a runtime and create application  
>> packages
>> that are on the average < 100k without resources. Is this possible
>> at the moment? It used to be possible with v3xx, but with v4xx
>> it looks like support for this mode has been removed. Am I right?
>
> Long before the end of the v3xx series, we moved away from installing
> libraries into a shared or system area. Windows DLLs used to go into
> the system folder, and Mac OS X frameworks used to go in
> "/Library/Frameworks". We moved away from that kind of installation
> because it created problems for non-administrators and non-expert
> administrators.
>
> Also, we concluded that if a user already has DrScheme installed, then
> you could given them a Planet path or ".plt" file that creates an
> executable, instead of trying to distribute executables. As an added
> benefit, installing a Planet or ".plt" package avoids a lot of linking
> and compatibility problems with shared-library versions.
>
> We could bring back support for creating an installation with  
> libraries
> in a standard place (the --enable-libfw configuration option probably
> still works for Mac OS X) and for building executables that assume  
> such
> an installation. For this to be the right default installation, tough,
> there'd have to be many users downloading many PLT-based executables,
> and the users must really want executables instead of
> executable-creating ".plt" files. Is there such a group of people?
>