css minification

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 10:16:55AM -0800, Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 1/16/15 9:58 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> >On Friday, 16 January 2015 at 17:40:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>I just added
> >>https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/770, which
> >>generates minified css files. This is because in the near future css
> >>files will become heftier (more documentation comments, more
> >>detailed styles etc).
> >>
> >>The disadvantage is that now one needs to be online to generate
> >>documentation. Thoughts?
> >
> >I would advise against this. If added, it should be opt-in.
[...]

I also advise against this. I do run documentation builds a lot when
working on PRs -- to verify the generated docs are satisfactory, for
example. Sometimes I work on PRs when I don't have a network connection.
It would really, *really* suck if I can't do any useful work unless I
have a stable connection. (Not to mention, sometimes I have to work
behind firewalls, which can make otherwise reliable internet hosts
unreliable.)

Please make this opt-in. Otherwise I will really lose a lot of
motivation to work on docs. It's already bad enough that the dlang.org
repo depends on all sorts of external tools, like kindle, latex, etc.,
most of which I don't (immediately) care about. Fortunately, the 'html'
target of the makefile allows me to successfully generate the HTML docs
without installing all sorts of software that I otherwise never use.

If you feel absolutely compelled to use an online minifier, can you at
least make it possible to build the docs *without* it? And I mean a
dedicated build target that bypasses that step completely; half-hearted
hacks like waiting for the connection to timeout is not a viable option
because it would just slow things down to the point I would probably
just give up and throw away any doc contributions.


T

-- 
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln