Why 7Mb?

[Troy Rollins]

On Sep 5, 2004, at 5:55 PM, Wilhelm Sanke wrote:

> You said (i.e. Troy) that "The Dreamcard player is big, but is 
> oriented to allowing a single download for all purposes" and there you 
> have indeed this "one-player-fits-all purpose" kind of application.
> There is a German expression for such a type of things, namely the 
> "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" - literally to be translated as  'the 
> egg-laying wool-milk-sow' .

Of course, I didn't design it, nor actually defend it, I just explained 
the rationale behind it as I saw it.

>
> If you think such a wonderful all-purpose animal is the perfect design 
> example for a player then you indeed need an application the size of 
> 7.4 MB to open a stack of maybe only 20 KB, a situation of tremendous 
> overkill.

This is true, though software like Internet Explorer, Safari, Acrobat 
Reader, could also be classified the same way, I suppose. They are 
large applications which open relatively small document files. 
Similarly, they are equipped to open anything ranging from very small, 
text only files, all the way through the most advanced multimedia 
experiences. Continuing the similarity, that 20k file can be composed 
of many different types of capability. In some cases a video-recorder, 
in others, an XML parser, in others a chat client. How does the 
Dreamcarder know if the end user is equipped to run their file if the 
player is not an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau"? Or, are you suggesting 
that each person running DreamCard should distribute a player with each 
stack they wish to distribute - which is obviously not the intention of 
RunRev's plan.

Again, I'm not saying it is right or wrong, and frankly, I don't care 
much, since Dreamcard has no real value to me. I'm just relating the 
way I perceive Dreamcard is intended to be used.
--
Troy
RPSystems, Ltd.
http://www.rpsystems.net