Re: [AD] Magic main in Windows

[Daniel Schlyder <daniel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A bit late, but I just had to comment on this mail.

Chris:
> Besides having a folder called "My Documents" holding game data and
> config info (a misnomer if I ever saw one), it adds nothing but
> confusion.

Err, it's called "My Documents" because, well, it's the directory where you
store your documents. I really don't see how that can be confusing. Where else
would it be more appropriate to store variable game data that is only meant for
a specific user? Are you also saying that one shouldn't store this kind of data
under home dir on Linux?

> Like if a game says to edit the config file, one would obviously ask..
> "Where's the config file?" It'd be a lot easier and simpler to say "where you
> extracted the program" than "look in C:\Documents and Settings\<your user
> name>\My Documents\Application Data\(program name)". Microsoft should be shot
> for having a directory structure like that.

Windows users mostly don't extract programs, they install them. And you say
"look in My Documents\My Games\(program name)" or just "My Documents\(program
name)". The "Application Data" folder is not placed under "My Documents" and it
is not meant for games.

> Of course it doesn't help that most Windows users don't even know that that's
> partly the same as clicking My Documents in the start menu.

Are you sure you speak for most Windows users? At least, this hasn't been my
experience.

> Windows users might prefer installers so that it hides the nitty gritty
> details that it's throwing files around every which way, but as a Linux 
> user, I personally don't like installers for that very reason (besides 
> being plain uncommon).

What about RPMs, etc.? I thought those were very common.

> If something goes wrong and I need to uninstall it, I'd like to be able to
> just run 'rm -rf <directory>'.. not another program given by the possibly
> buggy installer/main program and hope it doesn't choke on something.

Agreed. Luckily, programs with buggy installers are rare.

> It's also very counter-intuitive to do for source distributions.

Which, of course, is not a valid argument against doing it for binary
distributions.

> That's not to say I think installers are inherently bad. I just think 
> that having an (un)installer is a poor reason to be able to throw files 
> anywhere on the drive.

When you put it that way, it sounds very negative. You don't throw files
anywhere on the drive, you copy them according to the OS standard.

--
Daniel Schlyder
http://bitblaze.com/