Delta updates

Currently from my impression of watching the update process, it seems like it fully uninstalls the last version of TouchDesigner and then proceeds to install whatever new version you’re trying to install when the previous version has been cleaned up. This seems pretty inefficient and maybe adds to the time it takes to install (which feels like a really long time compared to other softwares?). One intermediate step that could be a way to test this is to only have delta updates for stable branch updates. So for example since the spring 2019 update just launched, from now till the next “big update” (if that’s the rollout plan…) would essentially be bug fixes and small additions, which would seem to play nicely with a delta updating system.

Pros:

  • downloading updates would be super quick (could have an update installer with just delta updates then a “full installer” for new users)
  • less chance of making windows freak out - far too many times have I had the update process fail or windows lose it’s cool and then uninstall TD after I try to open a project file…
  • Could possibly play into an early demo of the version picker if a git-like or OStree like system was put in place to store all the delta updates on your machine (since they’d be relatively small) so you could jump between them if you like (which I believe Fedora Atomic workstation is doing now)