I'd like to open up some discussion regarding the developer experience
for making releases.
The maven configuration shipped with the project already does a lot of
heavy lifting and automation, but I ran into a few issues as a non-Java
developer.
Here are some of the things I ran into, while releasing Avatica 1.12.
1. GPG signs using a default key (I think this is the first key, if no
default is set). I had multiple keys and my Apache key was not my first key.
2. I was not 100% sure that `-DdevelopmentVersion` should be the version
after the current release.
3. It took a while to work out how to authenticate against Apache's
maven repo.
4. I did not have a suitable environment. OpenJDK did not install in WSL
correctly, while Oracle JDK did, but I think all releases should be
built using OpenJDK. I ended up spinning up an OpenJDK container using
the maven:alpine docker image and using it to execute the commands for
building.
For 1, I think it should be possible to pass in the key to be used in
`-Darguments` (will need to experiment).
For 2, I will update the documentation.
For 3, I will also update the documentation and reference
http://www.apache.org/dev/publishing-maven-artifacts.html#dev-env
For 4, I would like to propose adding docker-compose.yaml with a bash
script that will automate the different steps for executing the dry run,
publishing or the RC and the final build promotion in a docker image.
This would be extremely useful for releases to easily build and make
releases (with safety checks in place) to reduce the time needed to make
releases drastically. This does not replace the current "more manual"
method of making releases, but offers a second option for those who are
not primary java developers.
What do you think?
Francis
