Add release tag(s) for sl3 repository

[krinsman]

I would like to make a conda package for sl3.

I understand that sl3 is currently in beta testing, but it would be possible to update the conda package as sl3 becomes more mature.

According to this issue on GitHub, in order to make a conda package for sl3, it is necessary for the repository to have at least one release tag.

Here is the output of conda skeleton cran https://github.com/tlverse/sl3:

conda skeleton cran https://github.com/tlverse/sl3

Tip: install CacheControl and lockfile (conda packages) to cache the CRAN metadata
Fetching metadata from https://cran.r-project.org
Parsing input package https://github.com/tlverse/sl3:
.. name: sl3 location: https://github.com/tlverse/sl3 new_location: /Users/krinsman/r-sl3
Making/refreshing recipe for sl3
Cloning into '/opt/anaconda/anaconda3/conda-bld/skeleton_1525233478806/work'...
done.
checkout: 'HEAD'
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/_conda_cache_origin_head'.
==> git log -n1 <==

fatal: No names found, cannot describe anything.
commit 10d707f35f42d68d5ccaded6e98dfd84bd81b08b
Merge: 50f8664 994abf1
Author: Nima Hejazi <nhejazi@berkeley.edu>
Date:   Mon Mar 12 08:51:30 2018 -0700

    Merge pull request #119 from katrinleinweber/resolve-DOIs-securely
    
    Link DOIs to preferred resolver

==> git describe --tags --dirty <==

commit 10d707f35f42d68d5ccaded6e98dfd84bd81b08b
Merge: 50f8664 994abf1
Author: Nima Hejazi <nhejazi@berkeley.edu>
Date:   Mon Mar 12 08:51:30 2018 -0700

    Merge pull request #119 from katrinleinweber/resolve-DOIs-securely
    
    Link DOIs to preferred resolver

==> git status <==

On branch _conda_cache_origin_head
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/_conda_cache_origin_head'.
nothing to commit, working tree clean


Leaving build/test directories:
  Work:	 /opt/anaconda/anaconda3/conda-bld/skeleton_1525233478806/work 
  Test:	 /opt/anaconda/anaconda3/conda-bld/skeleton_1525233478806/test_tmp 
Leaving build/test environments:
  Test:	source activate  /opt/anaconda/anaconda3/conda-bld/skeleton_1525233478806/_test_env_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehold_placehol 
  Build:	source activate  /opt/anaconda/anaconda3/conda-bld/skeleton_1525233478806/_build_env 


Error: no tags found

[nhejazi]

Thanks for your interest in this! We would be happy to facilitate your providing conda releases of sl3. Is the only thing you need on our end the creation of Git tags / GitHub releases?

I'm not as familiar with conda as I am with language-specific package managers (e.g., pip) so I am just wondering whether conda will require that all the dependencies of sl3 have Git tags --- do you happen to know if this is required? If so, it would make the process quite difficult.

[krinsman]

You're entirely correct; the dependencies were the bigger issue.

It's not necessary for the repository to be tagged in order to create a conda build recipe for it. The only difference is that, with the current version of conda skeleton, the process can only be automated when a tag exists. (And that may or may not change in later versions.)

It took a lot more time, even using the automated conda skeleton utility, to create the conda packages for sl3's dependencies than it took to manually create a build recipe for it.

I.e. the presence of the tag would have saved about 15 minutes from a process which took ~4 hours, so all in all it doesn't seem very important (to me) at least.

Anyway, you can see the (poor-quality) build recipe I created manually for sl3 here, as well as the corresponding package uploaded to the Anaconda cloud.

This has also been done for delayed (1)(2) and condensier (1)(2).

[nhejazi]

This seems great. Thanks for your work on this! If you'd like to add a line in the README.Rmd to mention that there is a conda recipe now available, feel free to submit a PR.