RE: Netinstaller for 21.4.15? [was: Package paths on Cygwin]

-----Original Message----- From: xemacs-beta-admin(a)xemacs.org [mailto:xemacs-beta-admin＠xemacs.org]On Behalf Of Stephen J. Turnbull Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 5:27 PM To: Steven Elliot Harris Cc: xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org; andy(a)xemacs.org Subject: Netinstaller for 21.4.15? [was: Package paths on Cygwin] >>>>> "Steven" == Steven Elliot Harris <seh(a)panix.com&gt; writes: Steven> Do you expect that there will be an 21.4.15 build with an Steven> installer offered for Windows? Ask Andy ... on second thought, I will. (Cc'ing...) Andy? Steven> When 21.4.14 came out, I recall reading that the Windows Steven> maintainer who prepares the installation packages was too Steven> busy to attend to it. "Busy" is a relative word in this context. The differences between .13 and .14 from the point of view of Windows users were rather small. This is a big difference, and reviewer advocacy will probably go beyond "strong encouragement" to Andy to the point where maybe somebody else will step up and do it if necessary. I think it's unlikely that there will be an InstallShield-style installer, though. Those have never been done by core people, and I really can't see a good reason for spending effort on them based on the quality of product and user demand. (My mind could be changed, that's just my current take.) Steven> Or is it possible to just grab a few files to bring my Steven> 21.4.13 installation up to 21.4.15? Let's put it this way: building XEmacs is much easier and more reliable than updating core files piecemeal (for one thing, you really want to redump XEmacs, basically the Lisp equivalent of the link stage for C programs). If you really bring bits across a river in a bucket, maybe bandwidth is an issue. If you have a 14.4kB modem connection or better, I suggest you bite the bullet and get the Cygwin toolchain and CVS checkout XEmacs, after which you can _reliably_ update only those files that need it. (Yes, I have done that, and not just once. It _was_ worth the wait.) Although M-x build doesn't carry around as much GUI garbage as VC++, if you run XEmacs anyway you'll find M-x build to be quite as easy to use as any installer, at least for this purpose. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences