Re: About org-mode-tests and CI

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Recently, Bastien told me about using GNU Guix for some tests of Org.
> Neat!  Then, Bastien pointed this org-mode-tests [1] effort.
>
> Unrelated, Philip provides Guix recipes [2] for various old Emacs
> versions.

I cannot find the discussion right now, but I should point out that for
the intent of testing, if the code depends on any external packages, it
will also be necessary to provide packages for every version so that the
compiled byte code, to avoid byte-code incompatibility.

Maybe https://yhetil.org/guix-devel/87y21n3x99.fsf@posteo.net/ could be
of use?

> Org and Guix are part of the GNU system.  Therefore, we could imagine to
> bridge instead of relying on Debian. :-)
>
> Moreover, what would be another advantage?  Run the exact same
> computational environment from locally to SourceHut builds.
>
> Two directions:
>
> 1. The SourceHut image of Guix [3] could be used but – and maybe I am
> missing a point since I am not an expert about SourceHut CI – the state
> (revision) of this image is not controlled and thus it requires
> something like:
>
>         image: guix
>         tasks:
>           - guix: |
>               guix pull -C project/path/to/channels.scm
>
> Well, I do not know how SourceHut is caching but somehow the .yml
> configuration leads to always the same computational environment
> (image), in which “make test” is run.  Therefore, the CI could spend
> more time in computing again and again this fixed state than running the
> Org test suite. :-)

This is also what I intend to do one day (in my case for Compat), but I
can imagine that if a substitute server existed with all the old
versions of Emacs, then that could be pinged for tests and that would
make testing a lot faster.

I believe that a number of packages on MELPA and GitHub use Nix to the
same effect.

But perhaps the SourceHut CI integration with Guix just requires more
work?  I can't say, because I am neither a SourceHut CI nor a Guix
export :/

> 2. Using [2], it appears to me almost straightforward to build
> beforehand a Docker pack containing all the requirements; say emacs@26,
> curl, gcc-toolchain, git, etc.  And this Docker pack would be built
> using GNU Guix,
>
>     guix pack -f docker -m manifest.scm
>
> where the file manifest.scm lists all the requirements.  Using adequate
> option as --save-provenance, this Docker pack can be inspectable [4] and
> it could be stored to any Docker registery.
>
> Hence, the line,
>
>         image: debian/oldstable
>
> or some images as,
>
>         image: ubuntu/focal
>         repositories:
>           emacs: http://ppa.launchpad.net/kelleyk/emacs/ubuntu focal main 3FF0E01EEAAFC9CD
>
> would be replaced by some images produced by “guix pack -f docker”
> stored to some Docker registery.
>
>
> All in all, I forked the project [1] but the SourceHuts build (CI)
> requires some fee, right?  Well, let me know how we could test this
> approach of using Guix as base for running Org test suite.
>
> (The maintenance of such can be part of the story too. ;-))
>
>
> Last, without putting the cart before the horse, I think this work could
> be a kind of preliminary proof-of-concept for testing Emacs packages
> (ELPA, MELPA, etc.).
>
> Cheers,
> simon
>
> 1: https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/org-mode-tests
> 2: https://git.sr.ht/~pkal/guix-emacs-historical
> 3: https://man.sr.ht/~dhruvin/builds.sr.ht-guix-cookbook/
> 4: https://hpc.guix.info/blog/2021/10/when-docker-images-become-fixed-point/