Is the vagrant tree still useful?

[sebb <se...@gmail.com>]

As the subject says - there have been no updates recently, so is it
still useful?

Re: Is the vagrant tree still useful?

[Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net>]

Now that I have some experience with a Node.js rewrite, and after
watching the svn library routines you have been developing, I think
there can be a role for a future Vagrant definition.

First: a problem statement.  Getting the entire whimsy codebase up and
running is too hard.  Even with things like setupmymac, it turns out
people have intentionally or unintentionally customized their machines
or chosen to stay on back levels of operating systems or whatever.  In
theory, docker could address this, but for whatever reason that hasn't
taken off with our development community.

What if getting a running image was as simple as "vagrant up"?

I believe that we are close to being able to realize that. The problem
in the past was dealing with things like authentication and access to
numerous and often large svn working copies.
You have made considerable progress towards addressing this by
reducing the need for full svn working copies and by moving many svn
access to library functions, often with access to credentials.

Before proceeding, let me back up.  The board agenda tool has a test
suite and that test suite makes use of an environment variable named
RACK_ENV.  That environment variable typically has values like
'development', 'test', and 'production'.  When ENV['RACK_ENV'] ==
'test', subversion sources are set to test data.

Node.js applications have a similar environment variable, namely
NODE_ENV.  When run under development, the svn sources are redirected
to work directories, and those directories are owned by the webserver
process (which is typically run under the developer's user id) and svn
updates are done as a part of the get request and using the user's
credentials.  It even goes a step further, when it is time to do a
commit when running in development mode, it will create a local
repository, populate it, and then replace the working copy with a
checkout from the local repository.  That way, it is possible to
develop and locally test functions that update svn.  In the future,
similar things would be possible for mail.

With that in mind, imagine a future where all svn accesses were done
through library routines, and those routines had access to the user's
credentials as well as the RACK_ENV environment variable.  One could
get a full whimsy server up and running in a few minutes using
'vagrant up'.  That virtual machine would be a full installation where
we would be able to control the version of Ubuntu, what packages were
installed, etc.

- Sam Ruby

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 11:55 AM sebb <se...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe it's finally time to drop the Vagrant code?
>
> On Sat, 24 Jun 2017 at 08:00, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 4:27 PM, sebb <se...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > As the subject says - there have been no updates recently, so is it
> > > still useful?
> >
> > I don't know.
> >
> > This was one of the many things I tried to see if I could grow a
> > community here.  My original thought was to structure whimsy as a
> > number of small tools and encourage people to start with only what
> > they needed to run that one tool.  If I remember correctly, Brett has
> > made use of the Vagrantfile in the board agenda directory.
> >
> > Since then, more completely documenting how to install the entire
> > whimsy tree locally on Mac OS/X (as opposed to in a Virtual machine)
> > has proven more successful in getting first Craig, then Shane, and now
> > John set up.
> >
> > My inclination is that the whimsy/vagrant can indeed be removed (it
> > was intended to help set up the secretary/workbench tool, but that
> > tool has since been rewritten); but I'd like to keep the vagrant and
> > docker setup in the board agenda tool a bit longer.
> >
> > Note that I don't expect that many of the tools will run well natively
> > on Windows, and I don't expect that any of the existing active
> > developers on the Whimsy PMC are set up to help with such an effort (I
> > certainly am not).  Docker and/or Vagrant instructions may become
> > important if there are any individuals who develop on Microsoft
> > Windows who are interested in contributing.
> >
> > - Sam Ruby

Re: Is the vagrant tree still useful?

[sebb <se...@gmail.com>]

Maybe it's finally time to drop the Vagrant code?

On Sat, 24 Jun 2017 at 08:00, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 4:27 PM, sebb <se...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > As the subject says - there have been no updates recently, so is it
> > still useful?
>
> I don't know.
>
> This was one of the many things I tried to see if I could grow a
> community here.  My original thought was to structure whimsy as a
> number of small tools and encourage people to start with only what
> they needed to run that one tool.  If I remember correctly, Brett has
> made use of the Vagrantfile in the board agenda directory.
>
> Since then, more completely documenting how to install the entire
> whimsy tree locally on Mac OS/X (as opposed to in a Virtual machine)
> has proven more successful in getting first Craig, then Shane, and now
> John set up.
>
> My inclination is that the whimsy/vagrant can indeed be removed (it
> was intended to help set up the secretary/workbench tool, but that
> tool has since been rewritten); but I'd like to keep the vagrant and
> docker setup in the board agenda tool a bit longer.
>
> Note that I don't expect that many of the tools will run well natively
> on Windows, and I don't expect that any of the existing active
> developers on the Whimsy PMC are set up to help with such an effort (I
> certainly am not).  Docker and/or Vagrant instructions may become
> important if there are any individuals who develop on Microsoft
> Windows who are interested in contributing.
>
> - Sam Ruby

Re: Is the vagrant tree still useful?

[Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net>]

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 4:27 PM, sebb <se...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As the subject says - there have been no updates recently, so is it
> still useful?

I don't know.

This was one of the many things I tried to see if I could grow a
community here.  My original thought was to structure whimsy as a
number of small tools and encourage people to start with only what
they needed to run that one tool.  If I remember correctly, Brett has
made use of the Vagrantfile in the board agenda directory.

Since then, more completely documenting how to install the entire
whimsy tree locally on Mac OS/X (as opposed to in a Virtual machine)
has proven more successful in getting first Craig, then Shane, and now
John set up.

My inclination is that the whimsy/vagrant can indeed be removed (it
was intended to help set up the secretary/workbench tool, but that
tool has since been rewritten); but I'd like to keep the vagrant and
docker setup in the board agenda tool a bit longer.

Note that I don't expect that many of the tools will run well natively
on Windows, and I don't expect that any of the existing active
developers on the Whimsy PMC are set up to help with such an effort (I
certainly am not).  Docker and/or Vagrant instructions may become
important if there are any individuals who develop on Microsoft
Windows who are interested in contributing.

- Sam Ruby