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Single executable files are very nice because you don't need to run `apt install <14 dependencies>` to try a piece of software, you just try it and if you don't
by gnuvince 5y ago
Single executable files are very nice because you don't need to run `apt install <14 dependencies>` to try a piece of software, you just try it and if you don't like it, you delete it without any cruft left on your system.
Go and Rust are two languages whose compilers produce statically-linked executables and they are growing in popularity, so you should expect to see more and more of these kinds of programs. And as these programs become more spread, I expect that other languages (either existing or new) will make it easier for developers to distribute their projects as single files.
- nrclark 5y agoSlight off-topic, but I wanted to address the above concern. APT, DNF, and many other package managers have an "autoremove" command that will uninstall unused dependencies. So if you did "apt-get -y install $PACKAGE && apt-get -y remove $PACKAGE && apt-get autoremove", you won't have any of $PACKAGE's dependencies hanging around after.
- gnuvince 5y agoTrue. The scenario I was thinking of was `./configure && make && sudo make install` and iterating on all the missing dependencies that the configure script flags.