bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

[Phillip Lord]

I've just noticed that between 24.3 and 24.4 the directory structure of
the W32 binaries has changed significantly, and now lacks a top-level
directory. Instead, they have the unix style /var, /share, /bin
directories.

I have discussed the issue with Eli who thinks this is right, and
briefly summarise the reasons and my objections here.

1) It's a standard way of distributing MinGW binaryes

2) You can unpack a latter version on top of an existing version, and
run multiple versions without fiddling with PATH.


My counter is:

1) Having no top-level directory is fairly unexpected for software
containing zip file (outside of a package management system). For
example, the Emacs W-64 binaries on Sourceforge have a top-level Emacs
directory.

2) A top-level directory makes it easily to remove things again
afterwards.

3) The windows Emacs distribution now has no obvious README or COPYING
notice -- this cannot go top-level, without a top-level directory.


I would suggest that future Emacs zip files contain a top-level
directory with the same name as the zip file, underneath which comes
/var, /share, /bin, plus README.W32, plus COPYING. This still makes it
easily to install over an existing distribution with a copy command.

bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:12:48 +0000
> 
> I would suggest that future Emacs zip files contain a top-level
> directory with the same name as the zip file, underneath which comes
> /var, /share, /bin, plus README.W32, plus COPYING. This still makes it
> easily to install over an existing distribution with a copy command.

I don't quite agree with the last sentence.  There's no 'cp' on
Windows out of the box, so either people will use XCOPY or the Windows
Explorer.  Both will by default nag users about overwriting existing
files in the destination, and not everyone will know how to work
around that.

Besides, I think most people will simply leave the files in the
directory where they were unpacked, and will then have to play with
their PATH or rename the top-level directory.

By contrast, if the zip archive does NOT have a top-level directory,
it is easy to create one upon unpacking: the 'unzip' command has the
"-d" switch for that, and unpacking from Explorer will actually
suggest a separate directory by default.

bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

[Phillip Lord]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
>> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:12:48 +0000
>> 
>> I would suggest that future Emacs zip files contain a top-level
>> directory with the same name as the zip file, underneath which comes
>> /var, /share, /bin, plus README.W32, plus COPYING. This still makes it
>> easily to install over an existing distribution with a copy command.
>
> I don't quite agree with the last sentence.  There's no 'cp' on
> Windows out of the box, so either people will use XCOPY or the Windows
> Explorer.  Both will by default nag users about overwriting existing
> files in the destination, and not everyone will know how to work
> around that.

Windows explorer is out-of-the-box, and it asks once whether to merge
the contents. I'm not sure how the windows explorer "extract" option
behaves

My own feeling is that most of the people who are worried about a
top-level directory will be power users and will work around the
problem. Probably by using "cp" from cygwin or msys.

> Besides, I think most people will simply leave the files in the
> directory where they were unpacked, and will then have to play with
> their PATH or rename the top-level directory.

I think most people will navigate to "bin", then short-cut
"runemacs.exe" to desktop.

> By contrast, if the zip archive does NOT have a top-level directory,
> it is easy to create one upon unpacking: the 'unzip' command has the
> "-d" switch for that, and unpacking from Explorer will actually
> suggest a separate directory by default.

Using the "-d" switch requires you to name the directory, which is
slightly irritating. And reversing the unpack if you forget is either
irritating (requiring three directory deletes) or very difficult (if you
already have any of the existing directories where you are unpacking.

My own archives without a top-level directory are for package management
systems, not for users. There is a reason archives like this are called
tarbombs.

bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
> Cc: 22935@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 19:35:59 +0000
> 
> Windows explorer is out-of-the-box, and it asks once whether to merge
> the contents.

Depends on how you copy.

> I think most people will navigate to "bin", then short-cut
> "runemacs.exe" to desktop.

Yes, and lose emacsclient, and then come back crying.

Anyway, it's clear we disagree, so I might as well stop arguing.

bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Anyway, it's clear we disagree, so I might as well stop arguing.

I think the conclusion here was that we're not going to change the
layout of the .zip files on Windows, so I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no