Re: GnuTLS for W32

[joakim@verona.se]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:00:49 +0100 Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com> wrote: 
>
> JB> 2012/1/4 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>:
>>> I am puzzled by this.  Why is it wrong to share the GnuTLS DLL?
>>> 
>>> If you and Eli and other W32 experts say a standalone self-updating
>>> installer that drops a shared GnuTLS DLL in a common area is a bad idea,
>
> JB> I think is a good idea. Fortunately, we don't have to discuss it,
> JB> because Óscar "won't start discussing it" ;-)
>
> I'd like to discuss it with anyone willing.  Joakim offered to help with
> the installer and I can probably follow a build recipe to make the DLLs,
> so practically it seems like we could do this.  I just want to make sure
> I don't find out in a few days or weeks that the installer approach is
> flawed for some obscure W32 reason, which Óscar sort of implied.
>
> On Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:10:23 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: 
>
> EZ> Maybe then this thread will become anything but hand-waving.
>
> I think it makes sense to discuss approaches--I had not even thought of
> the GnuTLS installer approach until we had this conversation.  Rushing
> into development can be fun, but can also hide good ideas.

Here is my advice based on some commercial installers I worked on.

- use NSIS to install all binaries. Keep all binaries isolated from
everything else, so no fiddling in system directories unless it in
absolutely necessary in which case you should abandon all hope and carry
on to the bitter end.

- NSIS is really a tiny quirky Forth language so you can do a lot of
stuff, including downloading updates, patching, etc. but keep it simple.

- NSIS won't produce the standard MSI installers(not last time I looked
  anyway) but this is just as well since MSI installers are not what
  they are advertised to be

- You can install all of Emacs with a NSIS installer, and distribute
  further update NSIS installers for particular components through ELPA.

Don't underestimate the number of ways a windows installer can fuck up.

If I were to do this I would make a build bot that produced daily
binaries of the installer of a complete Emacs installation including the
dll files. I would not bother with partial updating of particular dll:s
at this time.

Later, I would implement libffi support in Emacs, by including Guile as
an Emacs dependency. Then we could have uniform soft dll support, and
get a step on the way on including Guile in the Emacs core. But I digress.

>
> Ted
>

-- 
Joakim Verona