Cache gem install fontist

[jcbhmr]

ideally somehow want to avoid the expensive installation that happens. ideal world would be that fontist releases a single binary that we could just download and use but i dont think you can do that with ruby (?)

next best thing would be for fontist (or this action) to host a pre-compiled installdir result from gem install fontist --install-dir /tarballme for each Windows, macOS, and Linux. not practical

next best thing after that is to use $RUNNER_TOOL_CACHE and/or workflow cache to cache the result of gem install fontist --install-dir /somewhere so that the same user only gets hit with the 1 minute compile time ONCE and then just uses that cache over and over again

[jcbhmr]

today i learned... $RUNNER_TOOL_CACHE is relevant ONLY FOR SELF-HOSTED RUNNERS. github.com runners clear the $RUNNER_TOOL_CACHE and re-initialize it with predefined packages/tools each time they get a new job -- this is to avoid cross-contaminating someone else's runner stuff.

so $RUNNER_TOOL_CACHE isn't quite as important as I thought it was. that's an oopsie on me. @CAMOBAP sorry i think i mislead you in our earlier conversation 😬

reference: actions/toolkit#58
and actions/runner-images#8010

[ronaldtse]

It should actually be possible to run Fontist in a standalone manner, through Tebako. @maxirmx does Tebako support Fontist?

[maxirmx]

ideally somehow want to avoid the expensive installation that happens. ideal world would be that fontist releases a single binary that we could just download and use but i dont think you can do that with ruby (?)

We can release fontist cli as a single binary using tebako gem for Ubuntu/MacOS/Alpine. It is possible that we can use aibika gem for Windows but it needs testing.

That means creating separate workflow like packed-mn that will do packaging and release.

It would be nice if someone (not me) does it so that I am able to understand how to improve documentation.

[maxirmx]

Using tebako or aibika will also solve possible Ruby installation version issues (ref #5) since Ruby will be packages as well.

[CAMOBAP]

It would be nice if someone (not me) does it so that I am able to understand how to improve documentation.

I think I can help

Maybe we can add this workflow to fontist repo by itself i.e. not create a repo like packed-fontist

@alexeymorozov @ronaldtse @maxirmx any thoughts on organization?

[ronaldtse]

@CAMOBAP totally agree about adding the workflow to the Fontist repo itself!

[CAMOBAP]

fontist/fontist#356 - reported