There are a lot of topics in this thread and in the end it’s unclear what the feature/change request is. I don’t want to re-open the “can of worms”, but I have a few opinions and want to contrast juliaup with other software managers, which no one has done yet.
TL;DR: I don’t think the Julia team needs to make any changes to the Julia install experience for typical users; it’s comparable to other software languages and version managers.
Windows DX
I would consider installing something in a non-standard directory an advanced user task. I think the Windows Store experience is perfectly fine and easier and more modern than an old-school Windows install wizard. So, IMO the Julia team shouldn’t be spending effort on that without good reason. In other words, my hunch is the kind of user that wants to install Julia in another location is more technical and able to follow an advanced install guide where they’d need to work on the command line, etc.
Maybe there’s an argument for it if Windows Store is being blocked by your organization, but if your Windows administrators are that strict, then they’re probably also blocking install wizards. Unfortunately, if you’re a software developer working in Windows, you basically need admin rights for half the software you need to install. We have this elevate user to admin privileges tool where I work.
EDIT: this thread is discussing a Windows GUI installer - A graphical Julia installer for Windows
There are organizations blocking the Windows Store but not installers.
Curl install, other software
StefanKarpinski
The installation process on other platforms is pretty simple but piping commands from curl into a shell is a little sketchy
I agree, but Julia is not a a standout here. These software version managers all install with curl and pipe to sh/bash.
- Install Rust - Rust Programming Language
- Installation | uv
- GitHub - nvm-sh/nvm: Node Version Manager - POSIX-compliant bash script to manage multiple active node.js versions
Some software is even more sketchy and requires you to change powershell execution policy (e.g. uv). So if there’s a security concern here, it’s a conversation the entire software industry needs to have.
Software version managers are standard at this point and just another concept developers need to learn. In NodeJS world there’s fnm, which you can install from Windows store, or the older Linux/MacOS alternative - nvm.
Yes, they all have slightly different features and command arguments, which is confusing, but I don’t think juliaup is worse than others. As long as these tools have good default behavior and install latest stable version by default, then new users shouldn’t need to understand their details immediately or even look at juliaup help.
juliaup install experience
On juliaup installation itself. Yes, the wall of text is a bit overwhelming, but it is nice that juliaup is transparent about what it’s doing. You just need to skim the text and hit enter. Some text could be re-written to be less wordy, but overall I think it’s good and friendly.
You could argue this text should be minimalist and only output the install directories and confirmation question without all the explanatory sentences, but that’s a design choice people could argue about endlessly. In the end, you only need to read this text the few times you install juliaup, so unless this is scaring new users away, I’m not sure what could be improved here aside from minor text edits.