[Python-Dev] interlocking dependencies on the path to a release

[Brett C.]

Anthony Baxter wrote:
> So I've been documenting the current state of the release process,
> and it's a bit messier than I'd like - particularly with people
> scattered across timezones. Here's the list of things that need
> to happen, and what depends on each.
> 
> 1. Include/patchlevel.h
> 2. Doc build (depends on 1.)
> 3. Misc/NEWS, Lib/idlelib/NEWS.txt, Lib/idlelib/idlever.py
> 4. PCbuild/BUILDno.txt, pythoncore.dsp
> 5. Tag the tree (depends on 1, 3, 5)
> 6. export/build the tarballs (depends on 5)
> 7. Build the windows release (depends on 2, 5)
> 8. Update the webpages, sign the files (depends on 6, 7)
> 9. Send the email (depends on 8)
> 

The only thing I can see possibly making things easier is to script stuff. 
Steps 1, 3, and 4 could all be automated.  And if generating the HTML for the 
reST text is a slight pain because of errors in the syntax we could try to 
check that more often or even designate that someone keeps random track that 
the syntax is good.  Otherwise we could probably try to have some build script 
on creosote (web server for python.org) that tries to generate it nightly to 
catch errors early.

Best solution I can think of is somehow come up with a way to remove the need 
for Martin to do 4 somehow.  If that happens then Fred can do 1-2, Anthony can 
do 3-6, Martin does 7, and then Anthony finished up with 8-10.  Without Martin 
doing 7-10 I don't see a good way to rework this.

-Brett