Build instructions for (inexperienced) contributors

[hoichi]

Do you think maybe we need some Getting started instructions for potential contributors with little experience in opam, Dune, Azure, etc.

Personally, I’m looking at the repo and I have some questions like:

• do you build via make or via Azure CI
• are there steps you need to run before you run make?
• how do you start with Azure? Create your personal account and upload the repo?

Of course, maybe any build-related contributions simply needs more experienced contributors. Maybe babysitting inexperienced devs is simply not worth it. What do you think?

[thangngoc89]

git clone npm install -g esy esy

[hoichi]

Thanks a lot!

But should this information be more accessible? Then again, it’s available in src/README.md, so maybe I just didn’t look well enough.

[jordwalke]

Yeah, I think that our current README is weird because it includes the information that the fewest number of people would find relevant. It discusses the API version of Reason (calling it as an API) which very few people actually ever need to use.

Let's use this as an opportunity to rethink the most important things that belong on the README.

1. Link to "how to develop doc" - as well as a brief summary (@thangngoc89's instructions).
2. Information on how to consume it.

[hoichi]

Information on how to consume it.

Exactly. I have to admit that even after running esy I still have a hard time figuring out:

1. What have I just built? And how do I consume it? (E.g., I presume that the script builds reason & rtop, but how do I use what I’ve built? Should I alter my path so as not to point to rtop installed by bs-platform?
2. Where are those docs?

Again, I don’t know how ignorant you want your contributors, but if you want some noob feedback, there you are :)