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At least you have documentation. In the bad-old-days before ubiquitous online documentation, you'd have to sort through whatever crap the vendor saw fit to give you. If you were very lucky, there was a mailing list you could post on, if you were very very lucky, your post to the list would actually get a response.

No, software installation today is an absolute breeze compared to what it used to be, no matter which platform you're on. On Windows, DLL hell is largely a solved problem. You can just double-click the Installshield EXE and take a coffee break. On Linux, you can invoke the package manager for your system and have an even more seamless experience. Heck, even programming tools offer their own package management systems now. Want to install django? Pip install django. Want to install rails? gem install rails. It's definitely easier than unzipping files, setting configuration settings, finding (and, in some cases, installing) dependencies, and then crossing your fingers and typing make.




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