A Tale of Two Installations

One of my pet peeves about working on Windows is that there is no built in software update system. You can get your officially blessed Windows security updates automatically, kudos to Microsoft, for that but I want the same thing standard for every piece of software I have installed on my PC.

This morning I was interested in playing around with Ruby. Let’s compare installing a ruby interpreter on Windows to Linux.

Windows Installer Ghetto

Let’s document the steps involved in getting Ruby onto a Windows system the One Click Ruby Installer for Windows.

• Google for the website of the software download.
• Download their installer.
• Run the installer.
• Click Next.
• Ok the EULA.
• Choose the components. What are these things?
• Click Next.
• Choose a directory. Hmm do I really want it installed to my drive’s root? 
• Click Next.
• Pick a start menu folder. Why give me a choice?
• Click Install
• No I don’t want to view the readme.
• Click Finish.

I cannot believe that the fine people in the Ruby community have the gusto to name this installer One Click. I am pretty sure that title is tongue in cheek. I counted a minimum of 8 clicks not including the installer download. Yuck. Sadly I am sure most Windows users are familiar with this installation ceremony.

Let Me Get That For You

Outside the big blue sphere to install some software you usually just fire up what’s called a package manager and badda boom you get the latest version dropped on your system. According to the Ruby download page here are your potential pain-free vectors of Ruby infection.

Linux (Ubuntu or Debian based distributions)

% sudo apt-get install ruby irb rdoc

Mac OS X

% port install ruby

Solaris

% pfexec pkg install SUNWruby18

 

Open a console and after one command line + administrator password prompt you are pretty much done. The package manager figures out what dependant packages you need to allow ruby to live on your system, downloads them from a trusted repository and installs them. It is very easy and if you are command line challenged there are plenty of GUIs to keep you out of the console.

The More You Know

The package manager problem has been solved by other OS distributors. It should be pretty easy for Microsoft put their weight behind this problem. Take 10-20 engineers and put together a comparable Windows based package manager but this will only work if you get both open and closed source software developers on board.

The open source people will take to it like fish to water. The closed source people will be a hard sell. There will be many hurdles to convince software vendors to get with the program but here is where Microsoft can use their formidable marketing and developer prowess to move the market and raise the level of user experience.