proposal for a new infrastructure target plugin: windows application

[JosefAssadERST]

Spits out a .msi or .exe.

Fun and a bit unclean, no? I don't know if this is even possible to implement in an ITP for any job type. MAybe via docker desktop, but then it's just a docker daemon?

Right now, Racetrack is designed so any job type should work with any infrastructure target. If we begin to say "ok this ITP only works with the following job types" then this might make some things more viable, but I'm not even sure we want to do that.

Proposing this for the time being as a thought experiment. If we end up being able to do this, it has significant positive implications.

(low priority, but might be possible)

[LookACastle]

Before doing this, we might make a "proof of concept" with the much easier task of making an appimage or similar. At least, I assume it's a lot easier to make this sort of thing in an open and sane OS.

Also, consider whether just being able to spit out the docker image is good enough. After all, docker images can also be ran locally. Fun idea though, I'm not against it.

[JosefAssadERST]

Agree @LookACastle sane way to try the concept out.

[JSACol]

There is some interest in this kind of infrastructure target at Collectia - we would need to use it to build (and release) C# API's

@LookACastle any estimate of how much coding effort this would require?

Cheers
Joakim

[LookACastle]

This is a low confidence answer, but under the assumption that an infrastructure target would have a predefined set of dependencies and such, I can't imagine it being a lot more complex than setting up the build system locally. The hurdles would be stuff like "what does it mean for Racetrack to have .appimage as an infrastructure" and "how do we distribute these files in a meaningful sense" - and probably other, similar questions.

Technically simple, but complex engineering wise. So to answer directly, probably very little actual coding work.

Opinions @iszulcdeepsense ?

[iszulcdeepsense]

I'm not sure if I get this idea and I can't imagine how it's going to work. Do you want to use Racetrack as a packager and to transform your Python code into standalone exe/appimage that would run on desktop later on (no longer related to Racetrack)? Then, it doesn't really fit into the current Job lifecycle: you "deployed" a job, but you can't see it running and manage its lifecycle. I think we'd need a great redesign of many Racetrack concepts in first place