[GitHub] [spark] nchammas commented on a change in pull request #27534: [SPARK-30731][DOCS] Refine workflow for building docs

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nchammas commented on a change in pull request #27534: [SPARK-30731][DOCS] Refine workflow for building docs
URL: https://github.com/apache/spark/pull/27534#discussion_r377434717
 
 

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 File path: docs/README.md
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 @@ -31,15 +31,41 @@ whichever version of Spark you currently have checked out of revision control.
 The Spark documentation build uses a number of tools to build HTML docs and API docs in Scala, Java,
 Python, R and SQL.
 
-You need to have [Ruby](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/installation/) and
-[Python](https://docs.python.org/2/using/unix.html#getting-and-installing-the-latest-version-of-python)
-installed. Also install the following libraries:
+You need to have Ruby 2 and Python 3 installed. A handy way to install and manage various versions of Ruby and Python is with [`rbenv`] and [`pyenv`].
 
 Review comment:
   We can do that, but I am promoting pyenv and rbenv because they give us a consistent way to install any version of Python and Ruby across Docker and the typical developer environment, without depending on package repositories that typically lag a year or two behind the latest release. pyenv and rbenv also give and simpler and more consistent workflow for getting and using specific versions of Python and Ruby.
   
   With the way things are right now, we don't specify any version of Python or Ruby in the docs README, and in the Dockerfile we use a [4 year old version of Ruby](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2015/12/25/ruby-2-3-0-released/) and [3 year old version of Python](https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-360/). Furthermore, to upgrade from these versions to newer ones, developers have to figure out the upgrade path themselves for their local workstation, and for Docker they have to hunt through package repositories that, again, often lag behind what's available.
   
   pyenv and rbenv give us a consistent way to install and manage what versions of Ruby and Python we're using to build docs -- whether on the local machine or in a Docker image -- and they make it dead simple to change the versions we want to use.

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