[SciPy-dev] Build bots?

[Eric Jonas]

Does anyone know if there are or have been any build bots for scipy
and similar pieces of software? Would there be any interest if I were
to look into them?

It seems that a lot of the questions on the various scipy-related
lists are "I can't seem to build version foo on distro bar" or "the
latest svn check-in broke foo".

I have an extra machine at home and some experience with xen (a linux
VMware-like virtual machine system), and so would be interested in
helping set up such a system. I was envisioning testing the following
configurations:

projects: 
numpy
scipy
pytables
ipython
matplotlib

across:

debian sarge
debian testing
fedora core 4
redhat enterprise linux 4 WS 
ubuntu (breezy badger) 

My experience with other linux distros (and the *bsds) (and the
sometimes-forgotten other architectures, like ppc), as well as
windows, is rather limited, but I'll happily take suggestions for
additional things to add.

Ideally we'd produce a set of scripts that end users could eventually
run on their own machines, if they wish, which would then upload the
results to the main build test machine, or maybe http-post to a page
on the scipy wiki.

Every night, we'd checkout the latest svn from the projects, and try a
build across the architectures; we'd output that info to a centralized
location and then stick it on the web. 

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, and maybe not the
first to try, so I'll take all the advice you want to throw at
me. Eventually, it would be nice to have this set up to automatically
run the unit tests as well, but right now that seems a bit
ambitious. Maybe this summer... :) 


		...Eric