Re: Octave-Forge: requirement for a maintainer Makefile for release

[Carnë Draug]

On 13 November 2016 at 21:36, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
> [...]
> Some things I do not understand about the first two paragraphs in your
> original post:
> AFAIU missing files are a primary motive, right?
>
> Now, even if the OF site admin were to make a release based on some revision
> of the on-line repo using a package makefile, there's no guarantee that the
> on-line repo revision is "complete". The OF package maintainer may still
> have forgotten to check in files into his local repo before syncing it to
> the on-line repo. A makefile won't help there.

It might.  A package maintainer only needs to give a revision to make the
release.  However, it should still do the release himself via the Makefile
and test it.  If it does, then it might notice the missing files.

But the issue with missing files is that we are left unable to reproduce
the release from the repository.  A Makefile will fix this.  That's the
issue this is suppose to fix.

> A more robust check would be if all OF packages would contain a test suite
> that covers the entire package contents. Or something like lint to check &
> follow all function calls.

At the moment, the Makefiles have a check and a install target.  I guess a
"check-dist" target could be added to install and then check the installation.

> Not that I am opposed to a makefile with a dist (+ html) target; it'll help
> to run autoconf/bootstrap etc (I remember to have forgotten that myself
> before uploading a package) and -most of all- automates a lot of work.
>

Good.  Let's wait a few more days to see if anyone opposes.

Carnë