Draft for mail about ci

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Donnerstag, 9. März 2023 22:21:19 CET L. E. Segovia wrote:
> Based on the previous emails, it seems a key item wasn't covered:
> 
> 6) Local builds with 3rdparty deps (replica CI environment)
> 
>      * uses our custom deps built from 3rdparty folder
>      * can be rebuilt locally
> 
> Now, I'm totally unfamiliar with Craft's rationale and how it works, so
> I have three questions coming from my own experience tinkering with
> 3rdparty.
> 
> - Ben had told me, if I'm not mistaken, about make DESTDIR being the
> workhorse of Craft. I know that CMake may disallow it it in Windows:
> https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/envvar/DESTDIR.html. So, does Craft
> work with Windows dependencies, whether MSVC or Clang?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Craft was originally developed to 
build KDE application on Windows and it works very well with MSVC 2019. It 
works equally well with MinGW. I don't know anything about builds with Clang 
on Windows.

> - Does KDE sysadmin allow external retrieval of the packages for a
> developer environment? If so, what's the procedure to recreate it using
> Craft?

The Craft cache is available for everyone, i.e. in particular for locally 
running builds with Craft. Using Craft is really easy once it's set up. 
(Setting it up is also pretty easy.) https://community.kde.org/Craft

> - Does Craft require a certain directory layout? In other words, does it
> support relocatable dependencies outside of Unix-based operating systems?

Again, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Since Craft was developed for 
Windows builds originally, I assume that the answer to your second question is 
yes. Craft builds all dependencies individually. For the application and all 
dependencies so called blue prints (written in Python) describe where to find 
the sources, what the dependencies are, and how to build it.

By the way, the semi-automatic (via manual GitLab jobs) publication of the 
builds on app stores, e.g. Microsoft Store, is also part of the full GitLab 
CI/CD story. See
https://blogs.kde.org/2023/01/16/neochat-published-microsoft-store.

Regards,
Ingo
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 228 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kimageshop/attachments/20230309/36f97de3/attachment.sig>