About #include statements and other related questions

[Joe Smith]

but there's a fair amount of "teckie" stuff that just gives you a raw
zip file and expects you do it all yourself.

Sure, but those are often not meant to be installed in the normal style.
Either they are programs expected to be run once, or they expect you to put
it where you want it, and run the exe, perhaps making a desktop shortcut,
but probably not bothering to create a start menu shortcut. I have a large
folder on my desktop of stuff collected over the years, named (imaginatevly)
"test". (For a while I also had a "test2"). In there I keep my hex editor,
my C and C++ standards, the Utilities from SysInternals, my console
emulators and roms, and other things. It works well.)

<rant>
One thing that I find really annoying is programs that are almost certainly
one use programs, like the Windows Vista and Windows 7 upgrade advisors,
that come with an installer. So what, I'm supposed to install it, use it
once, then uninstall it? Why not just make it a self contained exe that you
just run, and delete when finished?

OS X has things much saner than windows in this respect. Most applications
have no installer.

Those that need an installer because they are actually a software suite, or
need to install a framework if it is not already present, use an installer
system built into the OS itself. Pretty simple, works well.

</rant>

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Joe Smith:

<rant>
One thing that I find really annoying is programs that are almost
certainly one use programs, like the Windows Vista and Windows 7 upgrade
advisors, that come with an installer. So what, I'm supposed to install
it, use it once, then uninstall it? Why not just make it a self
contained exe that you just run, and delete when finished?

OS X has things much saner than windows in this respect. Most
applications have no installer.

Those that need an installer because they are actually a software suite,
or need to install a framework if it is not already present, use an
installer system built into the OS itself. Pretty simple, works well.

</rant>

It's a bit off-topic, but I remember once when I made a little utility called
"Screensaver manager" -- it was mostly to investigate C++ RAII construction of
GUI widgets (that worked well, even for modal dialogs), but since it also turned
out to be useful as a program I decided to put it in the public domain.

I took care to put everything in /one/ little .exe file so that it wouldn't need
an installer. You could if you wanted to save a help file in the same directory.
But it wasn't necessary.

However, while some freeware distribution sites like CNet were happy with that,
Tucows required an installer. Or they required an installer in order to give
stars, or whatever it was, I don't exactly remember. The installer would have
been much larger than the program, increased download times, would have been
much more work for me -- and would have served /no/ useful purpose!


Cheers,

- Alf