[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] The release process

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> It may sound like a dumb question by why do we need a release tool at
> all? I was involved in the release process of 3.0a2. Almost every step
> of the build process required human interaction.  I don't want to
> diminish the effort that was put into welease though. But maybe (!) the
> same time spent for fixing some bugs would have helped the RM more.

I think you underestimate the number of changes that the RM needs
to make manually, the the ease at which some of these steps get forgotten.

Just take a look at the changes in r60911 and r60913, or r61144,
r61147, r61150, r61151. Would you have found and remembered all the
changes necessary? It helps *tremendously* if a tool tells you that
you didn't miss any of the mechanic edits.

Then, it also helps if the tool performs some of the mechanic steps,
like:
- tagging the tree (would you get the svn command line right the
   first time?)
- exporting the tree, and creating the tar files (would you remember
   to touch the AST files that need more recent time stamps than
   their respective sources?)
- uploading the tar files to dinsdale (do you remember the path
   on dinsdale the files need to go to?)

Barry apparently wants it to go even further, making many of the
edits for you.

Creating the Windows installer is comparatively much less
error-prone (although I do sometimes forget to update Python/sysmodule.c 
when I switch my sandbox to the release tag).

Regards,
Martin