On Apr 9, 2008, at 5:18 PM, mabshoff wrote: > On Apr 10, 1:19 am, "Yi Qiang" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> William forgot to CC sage-devel. >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 4:18 PM >> Subject: Re: use zip instead of 7zip for distributing the sage binary >> To: Yi Qiang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 1:57 PM, Yi Qiang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> > Hi all, >> > When creating binary releases for Sage in the future, could we >> please >> > put out a release in the 'zip' format as well as '7z'? >> >> > The success rate of installing Sage in my algebraic geometry >> class is >> > incredibly low. Today 2 students told me they couldn't get Sage >> > working on their Windows machines so they gave up and used Maple >> > instead. >> >> > Both of them were stuck at trying to _decompress_ Sage. They >> had no >> > idea what 7zip was and asked why we use 7zip, instead of >> WinZip, which >> > everyone knows and for which Windows has support built-in. I >> told them >> > about how the compression ratio is better for 7zip. Their >> comment was >> > "it's already such a big download anyways, what's the >> difference?" >> >> > I think using zip instead of 7z removes one of the many hoops >> users >> > have to jump through to get Sage working on their Windows box. >> >> +1 >> >> I very strongly agree with this. I've completely *replaced* the >> 7z file with >> a zip file, updated the readme, etc.
+1 I agree with this move. > <rant> > Sigh. To put it mildly this borders on the insane. I am all for user > friendliness, but if you are attending college and you are not capable > following simple instructions to install a piece of software than > maybe you aren't ready to use computer algebra software. Sage itself > isn't some program that my virtual aunt Tilly uses to do some basic > computer task, but a full fledged CAS where RTFM is required to use it > beyond the "1+1" stage. Having done my fair share of work as an admin > I can understand that software can be hard to use and/or intimidating, > but this reminds me of a user friendly carton a while back where > instead of a sign at an amusement ride where it said "You must be this > tall to ride this ride" it said "You must be this smart to use the > Internet". The little hand did point above chimp, but below cave man I > will spare you the rest of this rant, but the initial version in my > head did feature a couple choice words I prefer not to write in a > public forum. > </rant> I don't want to fan a flame war, but there are a lot of people who would rather spend their time learning about (e.g.) algebraic geometry and what Sage can do for them in that domain then how to decompress an obscure file format. One of the great things about Sage is that it is an easy distribution of math software, and we shouldn't loose site of this goal. I think it is especially important to lower the amount of effort required before there is any return on the investment. > Instead of switching to to Winzip I would much rather use the "Self- > extracting capability for 7z format" of 7zip. Bandwidth is a finite > resource and I am not convinced that using some crappy old compression > technology is the answer. Bandwidth is cheap, and though finite we are nowhere near reaching the limit. An additional 65MB/download or so is much cheaper than extra support and lost users. We can always offer both formats for savy users who want to save on download time. If bandwidth is an issue on the user side (I doubt that extra 65MB is going to change their mind about downloading it) that is what the DVD option at lulu is for (which, I just checked, has sold 8 times since I put it up two weeks ago). > And people who are unaware of the existence > of any compression format beyond zip out there will still click on an > executable. I personally dislike the idea of extracting things as self-extracting executables, both because I don't think people should get in the habit of downloading and double-clicking on .exe files, and also because it means the VM-ware image can't be (easily) accessed from non-windows boxes. - Robert --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
