PostGIS 3.7.0rc2 released

[Greg Troxel]

"Regina Obe" <lr at pcorp.us> writes:

> The compile error is just bogus.  Stems from the fact that visual-examples
> aren't built.
> On my system I get this now from building from the tarball and running
> commands:
>
> make -C doc html
>
> wrote /projects/postgis/postgis-3.7.0rc2/doc/html/postgis-ref-index.json and
> /projects/postgis/postgis-3.7.0rc2/doc/html/postgis-ref-index.js;
> commands=1, functions=630, operator pages=37, SQL keywords=63
> Makefile:626: *** Visual examples are missing. Run 'make -C regress
> visual-examples' first..  Stop.
> make: Leaving directory '/projects/postgis/postgis-3.7.0rc2/doc'
>
> Which I felt was much clearer than it recursing on each step and failing
> cause it couldn't find the images.

This follows from the bug that make docs doesn't build them.

> Not sure why yours continues to recurse on.  Before I made the change to the
> steps to just exit, I was getting the same results you were.

I don't think it does continue.

>> Reading NEWS:
>> 
>>   To build docs, first run visual examples and make sure you have a
> running
>>   PostgreSQL instance.
>> 
>>   `make -C regress visual-examples`
>> 
>> this is really problematic and outside the normal boundaries.
>> 
>>   - "run visual examples" does not parse
>>   - "make sure you have a running postgresql instance" is not ok.  When
>>      building packages, they're in a sandbox and while package building
>>      machines do run build tools, but requiring someone to start up a
>>      database is way too much for this kind of environment
>>   - "build docs" and "regress" do not belong together
>> 
>
> You need a running PostgreSQL to regress test don't you?  I fail to see the
> issue here.

Yes, to run regression tests.  But we are not talking about running
regression tests; we are talking about building documentation.

>> I'll look into this before, but I wanted to test/write quickly that
>> rc2 is not suitable for release.  I hope these issues are relatively
>> easy to address.
>
> Yah I was debating that but I feared trying to change that would just break
> things in more vulnerable ways.
> Do you agree the best course of action is just to advice people to NOT try
> to build docs unless they are contributing to the project
> and just make it very clear where they can download them pre-built?

No, I don't think that's reasonable.  This is a regression from the
previous stable branch.

> Even if contributing I'd probably say it's not necessary as I document a lot
> and never have had a need to build the docs myself. Always relied on the CI
> to do that.

That's the slippery slope to thinking telling people to run docker
containers is ok.  Seriously, I see a lot of projects that claim to be
open source and then say "This is too hard to build.  Just use our
docker container", and seem to not perceive that as a serious project
bug.