Re: [Tclish-devel] Re: Installer applications

[Kris R. <kr...@kr...>]

>   

Steve Cassidy wrote:

> package install tcllib
> 
This is great, but I'd like to see it as a totally separate layer that 
sits on top the installer. Basically, I'd like all the installation of 
tcl-related stuff be just a specific case for a generalized installer. 
The "package install" command would invoke the install libraries to 
handle the interactive aspects of the install, but to the installer 
itself this is just Yet Another Package to be installed, where the fact 
that it's a tcl extension is totally irrelevant.

The installer should be sufficiently customizable to make it seems like 
it knows all about tcl, but all that knowledge should be customization, 
not built in. We can make the tcl-related customization available with 
the tool as a matter of course, but someone who's not using TCL should 
still be able to use the installer for their application.

So I think our effort should be divided into layers something like this:

4. high level tcl commands (like "package install" - or what about 
"package update" to keep things current?) that hide all the dirty work 
of finding, downloading, and installing tcl packages.
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3. A set of customizations, (or plugins or whatever you want to call it) 
that set up the generalized installer to know where to look for tcl 
packages, to understand things like TEA, etc.
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2. A generalized, highly customizable (but easy to configure) installer 
that has no obvious ties to TCL from the point of view of the casual 
user. It should be able to install from CDROM or via download, and 
should provide a simple means of checking for updates a la red-carpet. 
It should probably work in either a GUI or non-GUI environment. It would 
be nice if the install could be scripted, so it could for example be run 
automatically on several machines, after answering the questions one time.
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1. A set of libraries (probably in tcllib) that support the job of doing 
installs - like creating a single-file statically linked executable that 
doesn't need TCL already installed, editing windows registry, updating 
RPM database, downloading/resuming download of large tarfiles, etc.


In addition to these, we might want to provide a user-friendly 
application to help create an install for general applications, or for 
tcl extensions

-- 
Kris Raney