Installer for current release version and automated testing

[Gustavo Massaccesi]

I have setup a copy of one little-schemer [1] project, with some
tweaks to runs the test in travis [2]. The 6.2 version had a bug that
broke their code, that was fixed in 6.2.1 [3]. So I thought it would
be nice to test it to be sure that the new version doesn't breaks
their code. (This looks easier than running it in a VM each time.)

I only added a few minimal changes in the "travis" branch (the master
branch is unchanged). I only test a few directories, because I think
the other are work in progress. To run the HEAD version, I had to
install the unstable-debug-lib package, because it has some functions
that were moved from the unstable collection.

In order to run the tests, I'm using the travis-racket project [4]. I
run the tests in the 6.1.1 and 6.2.1 and HEAD version of racket.

My problem is that I wanted to add a test for the "release" version of
racket, but it's not available.

The HEAD version is tested using the current snapshot at
http://plt.eecs.northwestern.edu/snapshots/current/installers/racket-test-current-x86_64-linux-precise.sh

But the latest (old) "release" version is
http://pre-release.racket-lang.org/installers/racket-minimal-6.2.0.900-x86_64-linux-ubuntu-precise.sh

One problem is that it has the version number in the URL, I found no
link for the "current" version, so it's difficult to add it to
travis-racket.

Another more abstract problem is that I'm not sure what is the right
"current" version of the release branch outside the release windows,
¿the last release version? ¿a copy of the HEAD version? ...

Is it possible to add something like
http://pre-release.racket-lang.org/installers/racket-minimal-current-x86_64-linux-ubuntu-precise.sh
?

[1] https://github.com/SeaRbSg/little-schemer
[2] https://github.com/gus-massa/little-schemer/tree/travis
[3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket-users/qXgkj4DwqyQ/ng2x-8RXQK4J
[4] https://github.com/greghendershott/travis-racket

Gustavo

[Robby Findler]

If you test against head you will probably get the best warnings. I
assume you want to find out about problems before the release goes
out, to prepare for the release? (The release branch is a relatively
short-lived thing that exists only in the run up to a release.)

Robby

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[Gustavo Massaccesi]

My idea was to test the pre-release version with one or two more sets
of tests. Some bugs are subtle and only appear in very few code paths.
This project hit a bug in last version, so it was a good candidate for
an additional test.

With the current head, the test of the project are running correctly
(minus the unstable part, but there are no guaranties about the
unstable collection).

Gustavo

[Matthew Flatt]

Release-candidate builds should show up at pre-release.racket-lang.org
on the 15th. The process for a release at month M (January, April,
July, or October) is

1st of M: an alert goes out that a release branch will happen soon
7th of M: release branch is created
15th of M: release candidate builds become available and testing starts

So, a "pre-release" build exists only for a couple of weeks during
testing. Outside of that window, the choice is a snapshot or release
--- and I'm not sure it makes sense to name either a snapshot or
release as a suitable replacement for "pre-release" in general.

It would certainly make sense for the pre-release builds to include a
download link without a version number. At the moment, that's not
simply a matter of flipping a configuration switch, because the
"current" links that are created for a snapshot are in the step that
creates a single site from multiple snapshot builds, instead of the
step that creates a site for a single build. Unless Ryan creates the
links manually (or through his own scripts), someone would need to
adjust the general build script (in "distro-build") to add that.

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[Ryan Culpepper]

I've added links in the installers directory where the version number is
replaced with "current". So you should be able to fetch, for example,

http://pre-release.racket-lang.org/installers/racket-minimal-current-x86_64-linux-ubuntu-precise.sh

The links will only be available during the release process, though.

Ryan

[Gustavo Massaccesi]

It's working, but I have some details to polish.
https://travis-ci.org/gus-massa/little-schemer/builds/86530945

I was using
raco pkg install --auto main-distribution
to upgrade the minimal distribution to a full distribution, but it was
slower than the other configurations.

Then I tried removing "minimal" from the link:
http://pre-release.racket-lang.org/installers/racket-current-x86_64-linux-ubuntu-precise.sh
and it works too. I hope it's also supported.

Gustavo

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[Ryan Culpepper]

Yes, any installer file that is normally present and has a version
number should also have a "current" link.

Ryan