[Python-Dev] Looking after the buildbots (in general)

[Barry Warsaw]

On Aug 04, 2010, at 01:56 PM, Steve Holden wrote:

>But I see rules being established ("there's a language moratorium: no
>changes!", "no release should be made unless the buildbots are *all*
>green") and then ignored apparently on a whim. This doesn't give people
>any confidence that the rules actually mean much, and I think ignoring
>the latter rule can negatively affect quality.

I don't believe we've ever had a rule (as embodied in PEP 101) that a release
requires all buildbots to be green.  I think that would be unachievable due in
large part to the buildbot infrastructure itself not being very stable.  We
have identified some buildbots as "stable" ones and PEP 101 says:

  ___ Check the stable buildbots.

      Go to http://www.python.org/dev/buildbot/stable/

      (the trailing slash is required).  Look at the buildbots for the release
      you're making.  Ignore any that are offline (or inform the community so
      they can be restarted).  If what remains are (mostly) green buildbots,
      you're good to go.  If you have non-offline red buildbots, you may want
      to hold up the release until they are fixed.  Review the problems and
      use your judgement, taking into account whether you are making an alpha,
      beta, or final release.

Even having non-offline stable buildbots completely green for a release would
take work we don't have the manpower for.  When I'm doing a release, I
certainly consult both the stable and unstable buildbots, but I always run the
full test suite on local platforms I have access too, which covers Linux, OS
X, and hopefully soon Windows.  #python-dev is helpful here for providing some
additional sanity checks.

-Barry
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