Hacker News Reader

Did you honestly write this down thinking it was remotely any easier?

Then the alternative? Absolutely. The alternative requires finding the latest version of Python, installing it, modifying the environment path, finding the binary for youtube-dl, installing it, and only then figuring out how it works.

"Execute these commands only once and then just type youtube-dl https://example.com. If something breaks, run this command to upgrade the script and retry." If the target audience is someone who you think will feel comfortable doing youtube-dl in a terminal, you may as well point them to the total of three other commands to set things up.

AFAIR youtube-dl had an .exe build, I remember setting it up for my mom; it boiled down to unzipping an archive and telling here to drag URLs onto this icon. And the FFMpeg part; that was a PITA, and something she wouldn't have guessed on her own.

> Windows exe requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) and does not require Python that is already embedded into the binary.

Yeah, that makes sense. Things have changed since last time I went through that pain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com