Re: GOP2-2b - Stable 2.16.x releases (dictator) (probable decision)

[Graham Percival]

On Fri, Aug 03, 2012 at 07:42:34PM +0200, John Mandereau wrote:
> Il giorno mer, 01/08/2012 alle 20.51 +0100, Graham Percival ha scritto:
> > I was particularly thinking of the download links and links to
> > docs (on both the Downloads page and the Development page).  That
> > needs to do build number -> python -> texinfo macros -> html.  But
> > at least it's fully debuggable just with "make website", without
> > bringing in the hour of a normal "make doc".
> 
> Oh, I see.  I thought the scripts building this (e.g.
> scripts/build/create-weblinks-itexi.py) were already looking for actual
> release numbers instead of assuming "1".

That's the issue.  Those scripts get the normal triple from
VERSION, but the release number requires an http connection.
However, we of course don't want to require that the build system
has http, so a graceful fall-back to "1" is required.

> > I'm not sure offhand how to get the build number, since we don't
> > put it into VERSION.  Maybe check the http directory and grab the
> > filename if there's an internet connection, or else not default to
> > -1 ?
> 
> As for "make doc", could GUB set up an environment variable?

For the build number?  Probably, but it's been a long time since I
looked at that code and I'm not volunteering to look at it again.

> As for "make website", we could use something similar to what
> was used for the old website on a separate Git branch.

I'd rather keep it on the same branch.  If there's an http
connection, then presumably python has a nice way to get a
directory list of the relevant download directory, and one you
have a list of files it should be simple to find the files with
the same version and increment the release number.

It's a pain, but at least each step is relatively simple.  It just
takes work (maybe two hours?), for relatively little gain.

> > ok, I suppose we could just not bother with this, then.
> 
> It appears from this discussion that this issue is not so urgent,

Yep.  It might serve as a good introduction to this stuff if
somebody wants to start learning about the build system.

> http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1004
> 
> Please correct me if my comment there is wrong.

It looks correct (although I'd rather not hard-code anything for
lilypond.org; an http request to itself shouldn't be any harm).

- Graham