Release Script News

[Harald Sitter]

Salut everyone!

For quite some time I have been working on refactoring the release
script towards slicker design, more scalability and simpler frontend
scripting. In case of kipi-plugins and digikam the actual script
doesn't contain any real code at all (though that is because they use
a shared lib ;-)).

Anyway, the refactored version is available at
https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~apachelogger/+junk/release-script-refactor
Besides the simplified frontend code it is also a lot more dynamic
than the previous version. While the old GUI version was dropped
completely the new scripts now allows for cmd line arguments to be
used (see --help for info), you can manipulate about everything that
way. In addition to that you can also hard code stuff inside the
scripts (see http://aplg.kollide.net/screencasts/release-refactor.ogv)
as well as use config files... that is mostly what I meant when I said
that the refactored version is much more dynamic. Here is the top
reason why the refactored version is superior: it supports GIT :D
(reference implementation available in the amarok2.rb script), it
currently hard codes the git URL but I expect to have that implemented
in a more dynamic manner soonish).

Also checkout the README file
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~apachelogger/%2Bjunk/release-script-refactor/annotate/head:/README

I'll probably import the refactored version into KDESDK within the
next couple of weeks/months. At any rate you'll see a major redesign
at some point. Especially the new Amarok structure (a combination of
GIT [for src] and SVN [for l10n and I suppose doc]) is showing the
limitations of the current approach, which is rather SVN centered. The
next major iteration of the release script will come with (probably) a
bit more complex code but should be able to scale a lot better in
about any regard.

Basically my current concept is to make the src, l10n and doc
manipulating parts completely independent from each other. At the same
time it will still have a kind-of gateway starting point (so the
frontend scripts shouldn't get any more complex than they are now),
this gateway will also act as some kind of glue between the various
parts. All in all it should become a lot easier to enhance the
functionality and support more VCS (the current implementation of GIT
gives a good idea how that would be working, also since each part is
separated from the others they can use completely different VCS). At
this point it should be able to detach the scripts completely from the
path structures of KDE SVN and those of extragear/playground.

Well, please take a look at the refactored version and try it out...

regards,
Harald

P.S. wishes and recommendations for the next iteration are very welcome