Re: [appveyor] Really slow turnover

From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-12-19 03:28:40

On 12/18/2019 9:37 PM, Rene Rivera via Boost wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 6:20 PM Edward Diener via Boost <
> boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
>> When I started out in computer programming some 40 years ago you could
>> submit a job, with some JCL, on an IBM mainframe computer via an input
>> card reader and you were lucky if you got back the result a day later.
>> How happy I was when I went to microcomputers and could get almost
>> instantaneous results from any programming attempt.
>>
>> Fast forward to now, some 40 years later, and it seems like nothing
>> changes, despite the great advancement in computer technology and online
>> access in our current age. Attempting to run CI using Appveyor literally
>> has jobs queued pending a run for days and days. Surely there must be
>> something better in this day and age than this ridiculously slow
>> internet service. Is it 1979 again ?
>>
> 
> The same solution from 40 years ago still applies. Buy your own CI servers
> and have then run your stuff instantly. Which unlike 40 years ago is
> financially plausible now. You can even hook them up to be managed by cloud
> CI like Azure Pipelines that supports custom clients. Or... Just use Azure
> Pipelines which has significantly better turnaround times than Appveyor.

A number of Boost libraries already run AppVeyor from their Github page 
to verify that a change is valid. I am certainly not against CI validity 
testing, but maybe Boost should explore better alternatives. When it 
takes days and days before a CI test in AppVeyor can be done while it is 
"pending", maybe there are better alternatives than AppVeyor which cover 
a very similar set of testing environments to what AppVeyor covers. I am 
gathering that AppVeyor is so slow because it is very popular and does 
not have the resources to run all its scheduled jobs within a more 
reasonable period of time.