Microblog Memes

Making an installation script that will work for all, or even most, OSs and processor architectures can be a lot of work. Are you paying the devs to do it?

I do pay for my software, even when its free, when I like the software and the devs. But if the devs/community think they are something better, then no. I had some where they refused a install script and said something along the lines that if you can't get it running with the docs, you shouldn't host the software. Yeah I don't like such devs. Also when they have enough time to write a documentation, they have enough time to write a script. I even had one project, where the dev refused a correction in the docs, even though it was faulty.

Also you don't need to write a script for every system. You start with the most used ones. I mean just for testing I would get insane, when I have to repeat some steps over and over. At our company I do write scripts for some things that drive me insane. First I got told, it works this way, this costs too much time to do and it doesn't sell more software. I just did it and now they thank me for that. Even just an internal tool that I wrote for myself, after I drove insane doing stuff manually, now also customers get.

I don't speak about software where you pull via git, install some prerequisites and run a script. Not shipping prerequisites can have a legal reason and git pull is just a different way of downloading. It also works to download the tagged source code, instead of cloning but this requires more explanation to less skilled users.

Also with docker I came across some projects where they really butchered it. A docker compose file is my preferred way. I have my file + .env and it works for most containers I come across. It looks clean and feels clean. Running one command for creating a user is a understandable step, to avoid default users.

When you like to hammer in a lot of commands into a shell to install something, do it. I prefer my clean, simple and straight forward install scripts. I don't need a installation doc that goes over every customization that you can make. I want a setup that works for most users and after that, I can dig around every customization there is, to optimize a software how I want it. Not everything is needed right at start and a default value that most users will use, is enough for the start.

Good thing that there is a ton of software and I can pick the ones where I like their philosophy and support them. That is what I do.