Post APXF22rtm7divaP0HA by janik6n@mstdn.social
 (DIR) More posts by janik6n@mstdn.social
 (DIR) Post #APXEkw5Lk0yIy3XGRE by janik6n@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T17:53:21Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       #CLI tools which are meant to be used by others than the developer, should be built to binaries. Requiring developer tools to be installed before someone can use your tool is super poor UX. E.g. don’t make me install Python 3.8.7 as a prerequisite. I don’t want to pollute my machine with random stuff. For example in this sense #Golang is fantastic choice. You only need to build and distibute binaries. Nice and tidy.
       
 (DIR) Post #APXEkwYPzwDwQD8TkO by bananarama@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T17:56:04Z
       
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       @janik6n Resolving dependency hell with binaries is extra fun work for individual FOSS devs that they absolutely have time for.
       
 (DIR) Post #APXF22rtm7divaP0HA by janik6n@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T17:59:12Z
       
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       @bananarama dev is different from use. For FOSS development source code should naturally be available eg in GitHub, but for end users binaries are the way to go imo.
       
 (DIR) Post #APXH8aYFefEl2XSbNg by bananarama@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T18:22:48Z
       
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       @janik6n A lot of projects' targets are developers or OS maintainers. Source distribution is absolutely not unreasonable if that is your audience, or all you have time and money for. Maintaining and supporting binary distributions is notoriously difficult and expensive because it means you need a way to predict what is available on the user's machines and have reproducible builds. It takes far less time to only support ports, cargo, nix or AUR.
       
 (DIR) Post #APXIJPuLfSe9AXWVA8 by bananarama@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T18:35:58Z
       
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       @janik6n For example, the last company I worked for only supported binaries on a controlled distribution and a specific hardware platform which was supplied to customers. Even then, it could cost hundreds to thousands of dollars for each support ticket, depending on what they needed. Unless your users are willing to pay, supporting their specific needs is often not a reasonable request.
       
 (DIR) Post #APXIWjKQm0i7AL4Tr6 by bananarama@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T18:38:21Z
       
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       @janik6n Drew nails this concept on the head in this blog post.https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.html
       
 (DIR) Post #APXK4NVoUbJlIs0It6 by janik6n@mstdn.social
       2022-11-12T18:55:38Z
       
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       @bananarama Great post, I totally hear what you are saying. While I disagree with some aspects, there is plenty of common ground, such as not polluting end user's machines with huge dependency trees.