Re: keep git master clean

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Carl Sorensen <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 12/15/10 10:57 AM, "Graham Percival" <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> instead of make doc.  That'd be 5-10 minutes instead of an hour.
>> Not ideal by any means, but better than nothing?
>
> So can I consider it valid if I run make doc (not make doc-clean && make
> doc) and make test and both succeed?

What do you mean by "valid" ?

The only way of checking if the docs can compile from scratch is by
compiling the docs from scratch.  I've seen too many little issues
with our build system to say anything else.

*Most* problems in source-code editing will be discovered with a
"make".  *Most* problems in doc-code editing will be discovered with a
"touch blah ; make doc".  *Most* problems with a regtest will be
discovered by running "make test".


But there's only one way to be certain that the docs compile from
scratch.  And that's to "take off and nuke it from orbit.  it's the
only way to be sure".  I'm adjusting the "compiling" instructions to
have *everybody* do an out-of-tree build at the moment, precisely so
that this will be easier.

I'm not, of course, asking you to do this for every patch.  I don't
mind if there's some weird bug that causes a problem and requires a
revert.  So in the sense of "being a responsible developer", then the
requirements for "valid" are much less than "actually valid".


>> I'm pegging this at 200 hours, and I don't think I'm
>> overestimating.  That's a lot of bugfixes, new features,
>> CG-writing, etc.  :(
>
> I think you are severely underestimating the time on this task, but that may
> be just because I don't understand the build system at all.  I'm not
> advocating spending these 200 hours, by the way.

Well... I'm fairly confident that *I* could do it in 200 hours.  I
mean, it "only" took 100-120 hours to get GUB working in fall 2009.  I
mean, remember that 200 hours is 5 weeks of full-time employment.  And
I mean "200 hours working precisely on this, i.e. not counting any
emails that aren't about the build problem".

These days, I tend to have about 2 hours of actual "code editing" time
each week, so such a project would take 100 weeks, or almost two
years, if I did it all by myself.


Cheers,
- Graham