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Re: 2013 sometimes still feels like 2003 or 1993 (Re: NEW processing during freezes



On Sat, May 04, 2013 at 01:05:06AM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [130504 00:32]:
> > The way to ensure that builds in non-clean environments work properly is
> > to devise a method for testing them, and to do those tests on a regular
> > basis and turn test failures into bugs.
> 
> Noone is speaking about non-clean environments, but only about
> non-minimal, non-artifical ones.

A minimal environment is the correct way to test that nothing is
missing from Build-Depends.

I assume you're concerned that there may be undeclared build-
conflicts.  But testing in the maintainer's development system is not
a particularly good way to find those.  Testing in a maximal
environment (everything with priority <= optional, minus declared
Build-Conflicts) might be.  I think someone has even tried that
before.

> > Trying to get at this testing indirectly by putting conditions on initial
> > archive uploads doesn't really accomplish the goal.  It's a very random
> > and scattershot way of testing that already doesn't work for any of us who
> > use pbuilder and cowbuilder already.
> 
> That's why I think maintainers should not only build in pbuilders and
> cowbuilders, but give their packages some actual testing.
 
Actual testing of Debian means auto-building and testing the resulting
binaries.  Anything else is secondary, though it is certainly very
irritating when packages cannot be built and incrementally rebuilt in
a normal installation.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
                                                              - Albert Camus


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