The idea of having multiple targeted installation paths is
interesting, but also problematic.
Pros:
We could have a "demo" distribution for marketing purposes,
that is never intended to be a real site and is ultra simple to set
up. It should come pre-configured and only takes a minimum
parameters to get it started.
Things that we learn while creating a demo installation may be
generally useful. Such as how to pre-configure (i.e. loading data
to set up the site rather than stepping through the install) cleanly
could be a big potential time saver for developers if it leads to a
re-usable export/import scheme that allows developers to "save"
a baseline install that they can return to after corrupting a
development site's data, etc.
Cons:
Constructing multiple installation paths splits focus and
potentially drains quality of development from larger installation
issues.
Maintaining multiple installation paths is a pain.
BTW, Mac OS X has a .pkg system for distribution. Its pretty
general, has a standard system for building packages
(PackageBuilder included with the free Developer Tools), and
has a nice GUI installer that it works with. Other than that I don't
really know anything about it. Perhaps MarkD (borkware
anyone?) or Russell M. more.
I'm pretty groggy at this point in the morning. I wonder how bad
my writing is... I think editing might be a nice feature.
