Re: [Boost-docs] Decoupling documentation builds from release management

Subject: Re: [Boost-docs] Decoupling documentation builds from release management
From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-12-11 04:50:29

Beman Dawes wrote:
> Documentation builds are currently done as part of the daily snapshot
> build. The snapshot is the basis for releases when the release date
> rolls around. The snapshots are build on my personal machine, and that
> means the doc builds have to work on my personal machine. Because of
> toolchain issues, that's been a constant headache for me.
> 
> One aspect of the headache cure is to make the doc build more
> reliable, and make it easier to identify and diagnose build problems.
> Daniel James and John Maddock are working on that now, and making good
> progress.
> 
> Dave Abrahams has suggested that another aspect of the headache cure
> could be to decouple doc builds from snapshots. I like that because
> (1) the snapshot can run every day even if there are issues with the
> doc build, (2) the snapshot can run on a machine that is already set
> up to support the lengthy doc toolchain, and (3) the responsibility
> for the doc build could move from me to those actually use the doc
> build.
> 
> One way this could work is for Daniel, or someone else intimately
> familiar with doc builds, to setup a chron job on their machine that
> would update their working copy, do the build, zip up doc/html, and
> put it on an ftp site. The snapshot build would download the doc/html
> file, unzip it, and copy more recent files into the snapshot. It is
> easy to set that up such that if some part of the process fails, the
> snapshot simply uses the previous doc/html contents.

I think this is the best suggestion I've heard so far. I am
willing to help in any way I can.

Regards,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boostpro.com
http://spirit.sf.net