Re: Making prerequisites easy

[Havoc Pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Elliot Lee wrote:
> As GNOME is being built, the authors of various programs/libraries often
> realize that they could make use of already existing libraries instead of
> reinventing the wheel. As GNOME is being installed, users often grumble
> about the prerequisities that they must install in order to get GNOME up &
> running. :)
> 
> As a result, authors sometimes shy away from requiring libraries that
> would benefit GNOME as a whole. An example I can give right now is the
> audiofile library (a library that loads various audio file formats), which
> Tom Tromey suggested to use for loading sound effects and other useful
> sound-related functionality.
>

For this particular example, it should probably always be optional, since
many systems don't have sound anyway.
 
> Does anyone have ideas for making it easier to get GNOME installed, and
> making the prerequisites look less threatening to new users?
> 

I would love to hear ideas too; my Guppi app has got to be *the* single
hardest thing to compile, just because it requires 4 or 5 libraries in
addition to all the Gnome stuff. And it's in C++. (But impress your
friends! Build it anyway!)

Some random thoughts:

I'm not shy at all about adding new libraries though. I think it only
makes Gnome harder to *compile*, and I don't think most users will be
doing that, once Gnome is released. 

Aside from compilation, it lengthens download time and you have to look
for the non-Gnome packages. Reinventing the wheel also lenghthens download
time, though; and we can always put the non-Gnome packages in a central
location. 

So I think making sure everything does compile and work as often as
possible is one step in the right direction. i.e. get the build really
reliable, and don't break it too much. A central location to download
auxiliary packages would help; and rpm/deb snapshots help.

I think it's definitely wrong to engage in wheel reinvention just to avoid
a few compiles. Those that don't have time can grab the rpm/deb snapshots
or releases. Those that can't handle a little instability and annoyance
should be waiting for 1.0, not complaining.

Small, reusable, maintained-by-others components are mostly good, and
worth short-term annoyance. 

Havoc