[vtk-developers] Auto install git hooks

Wed Jun 30 11:15:18 EDT 2010

If I may, I'll repeat David's sentiments a bit more gently.

You would get around this problem if you sent to your customer an archive instead of a git url.  Instructing your customer (as you describe him/her) to fetch the latest snapshot from the archive is a bad idea all around.  First, it adds further complication to the build process (get git and learn it well enough to clone a repo), which you said yourself is already too onerous.  Second, it invites the inevitable problem that your customer will get a version of VTK that is different than yours and with something committed that breaks your software.

Will this unnecessarily effect someone somewhere?  I will concede that it probably will, but it will be a small percentage of all VTK users and, amortized amongst us all, will save much more time than will be lost.

-Ken

On 6/30/10 8:49 AM, "David Cole" <david.cole at kitware.com> wrote:

The point here is:
- anybody using the VTK git repository should have the hooks installed locally, so that commits they make have a snowball's chance of being merge-able into the main repo
- if they don't have the hooks installed, then when they run cmake on VTK's CMakeLists.txt file, it should:
  -- automatically install the hooks for you if possible
    or
  -- be a fatal configure time error with instructions on how to install the hooks

Period. If I were doing this, there wouldn't even be an option to turn it off. Marcus is being more than generous here even providing that level of control.

If they can't handle that, they shouldn't be using VTK via git. They should stick to releases / tarballs that do not have a .git repo in the tree.

There's no such thing as a "user" of a library. They're developers. They can handle installing hooks.

Just my opinion,
David C.

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 8:57 AM, Wes Turner <wes.turner at kitware.com> wrote:
How much more complicated does this make the initial build process for a naive user who checked out VTK and just wants to compile/run it?  Every time I send code  to a customer, I invariably end up on a t-con where I need to walk them through the process of building the toolkits.  This holds even for otherwise technologically savvy people.  The frustration level on their end can be quite high, even when we prime them for this possibility. Similarly, we got blasted on this in a paper submission where the reviewer just wasn't willing to try out the Lesion Sizing Toolkit because the install/build procedures for ITK/LSTK were too high.  If the intent here is to make anyone who downloads VTK via git jump through another set of hoops to get up and running, then I think it is a bad idea.  I am happy explaining away warnings, however, so making it a warning would be fine.  I would also be fine with adding something in for people who claim up front that they want to upload back to the repository.

- Wes

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov> wrote:
That sounds pretty good to me.

-Ken

On 6/29/10 2:27 PM, "Marcus D. Hanwell" <marcus.hanwell at kitware.com <http://marcus.hanwell@kitware.com> > wrote:

So, I was thinking about this over the weekend, and talked to Brad King. There is an environment variable that is set by CTest when it drives the build. I can check if that variable is defined, and know that CTest is driving the build.

If I did that then when a user first configures VTK CMake will print an error with copy/paste instructions to check out the local hooks (along with a link to the wiki). They can set a CMake cache variable to ignore the hooks to get past it if they wish. If you are not in a git checkout the whole process is skipped.

If CTest invoked the configure then the environment variable is set, and so the error is not raised - negating the need to set a cache variable on all of the dashboard machines. The only assumption is that CTest is driving the build, which I think is reasonable. I tested the logic out in Titan and it looks good.

Does this cover all of your requirements reasonably? I will be checking this code into Titan as I think it is an improvement on what we had there too. I would be happy to check the relevant portion into VTK.

Marcus

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 6:33 PM, Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov <http://kmorel@sandia.gov> > wrote:

In short, a pushurl is not a good indication of whether commits will be made or whether those commits will eventually be pushed to the main repository.

-Ken

On 6/17/10 2:46 PM, "Marcus D. Hanwell" <marcus.hanwell at kitware.com <http://marcus.hanwell@kitware.com>  <http://marcus.hanwell@kitware.com> > wrote:

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Clinton Stimpson <clinton at elemtech.com <http://clinton@elemtech.com>  <http://clinton@elemtech.com> > wrote:

Can you key off the existence of a pushurl?
But I also wonder how this would keep the hooks updated?

We could possibly be clever and do a little regex to check for the git@ form of the url/pushurl. I hadn't considered being that sneaky, but it sound like a viable approach and would ease the dashboard pain.

Marcus

On Thursday, June 17, 2010 02:13:37 pm Marcus D. Hanwell wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov>wrote:
> >  That's a good point about CMake modifying the source tree, but I think
> >
> > this is one of those cases we should let the rule slide.  In this case we
> > are installing what, IMHO, git should be pulling for us.  Although the
> > Wiki says its optional, it really should be enforced for anyone who
> > makes any commit to any repository.
>
> We came to a similar conclusion in Titan, but I am not sure about letting
> the rule slide. This is new territory though, and it is just my take
>
> > I'm less thrilled about the "error if not installed" option because it
> > still pushes the responsibility back on every developer.  It could also
> > wreck havoc on the dashboards as there will be a delay in getting someone
> > to fix the warning.  But if that is the general consensus, it's way
> > better than what we have now, which is nothing.  If that is the path we
> > choose to
> >
> > follow, then I would hope that the following could be be features:
> >    - CMake be very insistent about installing the hooks.  It should not
> >    be easy to miss or ignore the error.
> >    - The error should give clear instructions on how to install the
> >    hooks.
> >
> >     It's annoying to have to find it in the Wiki every time.
> >
> >    - The check should also look for any updates to the hooks in addition
> >    to just seeing if they are installed.  One of the problems I run into
> >    is that even though I try to be diligent about installing hooks, I
> >    miss changes pushed to the repository.
> >    - The check should turn itself off if not run in a git repository.  A
> >    user who downloaded the source from the web would never be able to
> >    satisfy the requirement.
>
> The checks in Titan have all but the third feature. That would be a
> valuable general addition though, and I think there is some code floating
> around that could help us to accomplish this. It would be good to hear how
> others feel about this, but we should certainly be making these things as
> easy as possible for our developers. I will see what our software process
> type people think - Brad, Dave, Bill?
>
> Marcus
> --
> Marcus D. Hanwell, Ph.D.
> R&D Engineer, Kitware Inc.
> (518) 881-4937

   ****      Kenneth Moreland
    ***      Sandia National Laboratories
***********
*** *** ***  email: kmorel at sandia.gov <http://kmorel@sandia.gov>
**  ***  **  phone: (505) 844-8919
    ***      web:   http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel <http://www.cs.unm.edu/%7Ekmorel>

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   ****      Kenneth Moreland
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*** *** ***  email: kmorel at sandia.gov
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