Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vbezhenar 938 days ago
There are plenty of portable windows applications (distributed as a zipped directory) and there are plenty of pkg macOS installers.

I don't really understand why macOS users like this "simple" installation, because when you "uninstall" the app, it leaves all the trash in your system without a chance to clean up. And implying that macOS application somehow will not do "who-knows-what" to your system is just wrong. Docker Desktop is "simple", yet the first thing it does after launch is installing "who-knows-what".
2 comments
wruza 938 days ago
Windows uninstallers also leave all the trash in %AppData%. There’s no generic way to clean all the folders that a program decided to create. Only some uninstallers ask if you want to delete settings and caches.

Given that, dragging a ready-to-run file (folder) to /Apps symlink is much more convenient than “setting up your system for preparation of initializing of downloading of the installation process starter manager, please wait and press next sometimes”.

link
TheCleric 938 days ago
That's definitely true for more complex apps, but the fact that you can have the executable and all it's resources in one `.app` file is so much simpler and easier for the everyday user. (Yes I know it's a folder that the OS treats as an application, but to a user it looks like one file)

I go back and forth between Windows/Mac/Linux on the daily (right tool for the right job) and each has some strengths. App packaging is far and away one of Mac's current strengths.

I maintained Nativefier (a now defunct open source project that would package web sites as Electron apps) and the ease of packaging an app was Mac > Windows > Linux.

link