Why 7Mb. [Was: Why 10 hours for a newbie and 30 days for a "programmer"]

[Klaus Major]

Hi all,

> I decided it was time for a change of subject line ....

Yeah, good idea :-)

> At 12:14 03/09/2004 +0200, Wolfgang M.Bereuter wrote:
>
>> Thanks for you offer Chipp,
>> I m not Keith, but I would like to ask you too, because of your clear 
>> answers. Some newbies here asked me. We are from an eastern ex 
>> Comecon country (Ukraine), therefore we prefer Dreamcard (the price 
>> of course). But... Why does the same testfile (they mean: stack) have 
>> 7 MB with the Dreamcard player and only about 2-3 MB as a rev build 
>> standallone (They know my test apps). "How should we explain this to 
>> our costumers, if they have Internet, in Ukraine, which have mostly 
>> Modems (pay for DL-time)? Cant be the Startup-screen?
>
> I'm not Chipp - but I'll take a shot at this question.
> Why 7Mb for a player vs 2-3Mb as a standalone ?
> Because the player needs to incorporate ALL the capabilities of RR, so 
> that it can support all possible stacks. A standalone needs only the 
> parts it needs :-)

Yep, i took the time and downloaded the OS X REV-player and here is 
what's
included in the package... (OK, i have a broadband connection ;-)

###########################
components
   global environment
     Background.png
!   EXT.dll
     externals.txt
     revcursors.rev
     revdb.bundle
!   revdb.dll
     revlauncher.rev ###!!!!
     revlibrary.rev
     revlinuxcursors.rev
     revmaccursors.rev
     revplayer.rev
     revspeech.bundle
!   revspeech.dll
!   revspeechsapi4.dll
     revvideograbber.bundle
!   revvideograbber.dll
     revxml.bundle
!   revxml.dll
     Sample.mov
   save
      revgeneralicons.rev
      revgeneralpatterns.rev
      sessionlog.txt
   tools
      revicons.rev
License_Agreement.txt
license.rev
Read_Me_First.txt
Revolution Launcher ##????
Revolution Player
###########################

I am sure that one could save some KB when NOT including the windoze 
dlls
in the OS X package ;-)

And there is still this mysterious "Revolution Launcher"...???

Can someone please tell me what THAT is?
Saw this the first time in the first beta and still wondering :-)

If it does what it is named, then i am sure we could ALSO save this 2.6 
MB
and replace that with a tiny (4 KB) applescript ;-) At least on OS X!

And a stack named "revlauncher.rev" is also included?!

This MUST be of importance... ;-)

> What about my download times (and costs) ?
>
> The best answer here is to separate the player and the individual 
> applications you are distributing. (Of course, make it easy to get 
> both).  Subsequent applications (or subsequent releases of the same 
> one, should there ever be a bug) can then be "stack-only" - typically 
> 100-500K rather than 2-3Mb. So once your users have downloaded 3 or 4 
> applications/versions, they will have a net savings (7+4*1/2 < 4 
> *2.5), and from there the savings just keep growing.
>
> There is also the opportunity to provide a different distribution 
> mechanism for the player, in preparation for downloads (e.g. put it on 
> a CD, perhaps with other useful and freely distributable software, to 
> be given to users **).  This would make the connection/download times 
> much smaller than they are now, provided the CD has already been 
> obtained.

Exactly, and this would be a ONE time download (per version, of course 
;-)

> *** I have not checked whether RunRev encourages, or even allows, this 
> - please check that before doing any such thing !!

APLLE does not like this very common technique, but i think RunRev does 
not mind ;-)

> -- Alex.

Regards

Klaus Major
klaus at major-k.de
http://www.major-k.de