Past Rants

This is a collection of my past rants/editorials, whatever you want to call it.

April 30, 2002

Zip it!

I've a personal compaign to get people to stop using whatever compression format they are using and go with ZIP. I have to admit, this is mostly pointed at the UNIX/Linux crowd and maybe a little bit at the Mac guys as well.

Why?

Mac's Let's start with Mac's. They seem to like using .SEA or .HQX a lot. Well, that's great, except hardly anyone else uses .SEA or .HQX formats. How does information transfer occur with other platforms? Right. Secondly, .HQX isn't even compressed. (I may be wrong, maybe it's .SEA that isn't). Anyways, you get the idea.

Linux/UNIX: Okay, really, it's time to stop using .TAR and .GZ formats. (Alternatively, also .TGZ and .BZ). Have you ever noticed why the files are so commonly distributed as *.TAR.GZ? There's a good reason! TAR will only package up multiple files, no compression. GZ will only compress files, no packaging. This is the same argument as the Mac .HQX format. Why go with a non-compression format? There's rarely ever a reason to do so, since it's a non-lossy compression! Secondly, TAR is for Tape ARchives. Most of you aren't using it for tapes, there's no reason. TAR doesn't provide better compression or any other special features for a plain bunch of files. Thirdly, useability. Plop a new user down. $100 says he/she will figure out how to use ZIP long before the can even read through the man pages for TAR. And, if you have to use TAR and GZ, that's a 2 step process, even if you're clever enough to know how to type it on a single line. Finally, same as the Mac .HQX and .SEA argument, what if you have to share files? Yes, TAR and GZ is available too. Somewhere. Which platform are you running? Maybe you know where to get it. Maybe not.

From Russia with Love: Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it isn't really from Eastern Europe. But might I ask why they seem to like using .RAR? Alright, I know some of the arguments, it might be technically better, but that small amount improvement is offset by the fact that people with RAR/UNRAR installed is rare. Stop using it! It's a pain in the ass to find and download RAR/UNRAR unless you know where to look.

So why not ZIP? Some of the arguments I've heard against ZIP

It isn't free. Well, it is too. InfoZIP provides a free version. Free as in speech and free as in beer. The license is more BSD-like, so is even less restrictive that GPL. You can't get much better than that!
It isn't available for my platform. Is too! I dare you to find a more widely supported tool. Available from AmigaOS to z/OS (IBM Mainframes), from old Acorn computers to Cray's. Have a gander over at InfoZIP web site. Any platform is available from one location. How convenient.
Not available by default: pffft! Come on, which Windows user doesn't have WinZip installed? Somehow or other it makes it on the machine. For OS/2, the runtime library and executable is packaged by default. For Linux, it's there too. Check your RedHat installation, it's probably even installed by default without you even having to select it! Not sure about Solaris or HP-UX, but hey, it's a download away. Like if you're running UNIX or Linux you can't be bothered to hit the ONE, CENTRAL download site to pick up a small package!

So come on, it's cross-platform, it's free, it's open-source, it's easy to use (how easy does it get? zip PACKAGE.ZIP *, and that's without a GUI like WinZIP or Mac has), it's installed by default on many OS, and if not, it's easy to get. It packages files, directories, long filenames and compresses too. So get with it! Use ZIP! Go get it from InfoZIP now!