[Issue 14381] New: It is too difficult to contribute to the auto-tester

[via Digitalmars-d-bugs]

https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14381

          Issue ID: 14381
           Summary: It is too difficult to contribute to the auto-tester
           Product: D
           Version: D2
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P1
         Component: websites
          Assignee: braddr at puremagic.com
          Reporter: thecybershadow at gmail.com
                CC: andrei at erdani.com

There is a number of things the D autotester could be improved to do:

- Provide nightly build downloads

- Perform coverage analysis and provide a visualization of which lines are
covered

- Render documentation and provide preview links (or rendered diffs, like on
GitHub)

- Measure memory usage, build times, object/executable file sizes, and
trends/regressions thereof

- Provide an API which programs such as Digger can consume
  (Currently Digger is forced to use a caching proxy over the GitHub API[1], as
the latter is rate-limited).

Unfortunately, it is currently very difficult (if not impossible) to contribute
to the auto-tester.

The current auto-tester implementation uses proprietary components and makes
assumptions about its environment[2], which make it impossible to test any
improvements.

Additionally, the auto-tester's creator and maintainer (Brad Roberts) is not
always available to review and integrate improvements, which cause improvements
in other areas of D to be blocked, sometimes for very long periods of
time[3][4].

I think we should prioritize making it possible for more people to maintain,
contribute to, and host additional (backup or test) instances of the
auto-tester. This may include:

- Replacing the proprietary parts (this may require a clean-room implementation
by someone other than Brad)

- Improving the project's documentation

- Moving the project's code under the D-Programming-Language GitHub repository

- Granting access to several key D personnel to the existing auto-tester
infrastructure

[1]: https://github.com/CyberShadow/GHDaemon
[2]: https://github.com/braddr/d-tester/blob/master/README
[3]: http://forum.dlang.org/post/m8bt6s$1s86$1@digitalmars.com
[4]: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/druntime/pull/960

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