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Python documentation available as ZIP files

Laurence Tratt tratt at dcs.kcl.ac.uk
Sat Jul 24 08:12:43 EDT 1999 
In message <7nal1u$6cb$1 at tribune.oar.net>
          "David Robinow" <drobinow at dayton.adroit.com> wrote:

[Fred L. Drake]
>> I've received enough hostile mail from Windows users not understanding
>> how to unpack .tgz archives (er, WinZip works for me...) that I will be
>> making most of the documentation packages available as ZIP archives as
>> well as .tgz archives.
> This is really sad.  You're not really doing Windows users any favors by
> doing this. "tar" and "gzip" are "must know" tools.
> Let me quote from the GNU macs on Windows FAQ
>
> "You can find precompiled versions of all of the compression and archive
> utilities in ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/utilities/. "
>
> It would seem to make more sense to include gzip and tar.on the web site.

Sad or not, the simple truth is that many authors who distribute Python
programs (that tend to run on many platforms) as .tar.gz seem to end up with
full inboxes of "I can't decompress this" messages. And, in my experience,
not all of them are from Windows users. Ultimately, the simplest and most
effective solution seems to be to ship .tar.gz files for those who want
quick downloads, and .zip files for people who don't.

Admittedly, as a non-Windows user, WinZip has always worked when I've tried
it on .tar.gz files, but maybe I'm not using it correctly <wink>.

If you want to preach the benefits of .tar.gz I'd reccomend preaching about
.tar.bz2... And that way you can try educating lots of Unix users as well as
the Windows gang <wink>.


Laurie
-- 
http://eh.org/~laurie/comp/python/
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