provide a simple and uniform way to build projects

[sigmundch]

[-- I'm creating this as an umbrella issue, to collect all of our ideas in this area. Not everything here is an editor issue, some things might have to be fixed in pub or in packages. I couldn't find if there was a bug for this already, if so, sorry for the duplicate --]

Now that we have pub-build, some of the processes for building from the editor are no longer necessary, and are starting to become confusing to our users. It would be great to get to a point where there is just one way to build, one way to lint, and one way to debug.

Take a look at this discussion for some background
https://groups.google.com/a/dartlang.org/d/msg/web/f-D1xdeK_Wk/5I0g85VhiFEJ

Some highlights: A user understands that there are at least 4 ways to run an example:
  (1) Select the html file directly and "Run in Dartium"
  (2) Select the html file directly and "Run as Javascript"
  (3) Build and then select the corresponding file under build and "Run in Dartium"
  (4) Build and then select the corresponding file under build and "Run as Javascript"

Turns out that the way things work (2) is broken (it doesn't run pub-build), and (3) doesn't work because by default pub-build doesn't output the dart implementation.

I proposed in that thread that we might want something closer to 3 ways to run an example:
   (a) Run html directly in Dartium (no compilation, in the future maybe use 'pub serve'?)
   (b) Run html as Javascript by doing any necessary compilation via pub-build (compile with 'pub build --mode=release')
   (c) Run html compiled with pub-build in Dartium (compile with 'pub build --mode=debug')

   where: (a) is like (1) and works today. (b) is like (2) and (4) and could be done today if we fix issue #14836, (c) would be a working version of (3).

There are many open questions still. Here are some I can think of:
 - Run-as-Javascript was nice because you could run it on demand on a single file. Can we get to the point where pub-build supports that?

 - build.dart is still in use for linting - can we do something with pub-build (maybe pub-lint?) to get that information in a uniform way?

[sethladd]

cc @kevmoo.

[keertip]

The editor would like to move to calling pub build for "Run as JavaScript", but is blocked on issue #14664.

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Marked this as being blocked by #14664.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @butlermatt

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I think the build.dart also provides some great extra functionality, but as with Issue #15146 I think it's a bit of a misnomer. I've been thinking on ways I might be able to use build.dart to setup continuous testing from the editor. But as mentioned as an open issue it can still be used for linting and (for the time being) some building as well.

[clayberg]

Set owner to @keertip.
Added this to the 1.2 milestone.
Removed Type-Defect, Priority-Unassigned labels.
Added Type-Enhancement, Priority-Medium labels.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @Emasoft

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This issue is connected to another issue I opened some times ago:

https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/detail?id=15561

We need to reduce complexity. Not only there are 4 ways to run an example, but the user must try a dozen html files before finding the right one to launch.

[nex3]

Marked this as being blocked by #15829.

[munificent]

Marked this as being blocked by #13848, #13935, #14815, #15020, #15924.

[munificent]

Unmarked this as being blocked by #13848, #13935, #14815, #15020, #15924.

[sethladd]

Bumping to high, should be done for the 1.2 release.

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Removed Priority-Medium label.
Added Priority-High label.

[keertip]

An update on this issue

In the editor we now have

   (a) Run html directly in Dartium
   (b) Run html as Javascript by doing any necessary compilation via pub-build (compile with 'pub build'), and then launch the html from build directory.

We do not have
   
   (c) Run html compiled with pub-build in Dartium (compile with 'pub build --mode=debug')
  
Do we need to surface this option? Currently we show "Run in Dartium" and "Run as JavaScript" context menu options? Do we want to add a third one here? Seems like it would be one too many options for the user to choose from.

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cc @sethladd.
cc @danrubel.
Unmarked this as being blocked by #14664, #14836.

[nex3]

I don't think option (c) is necessary to expose through the editor.

[sigmundch]

but my guess is that pub-serve should be (which would be equivalent to option (c)).

[nex3]

Yes, probably both of these will go through "pub serve" once we have everything in place for editor integration there.

[sethladd]

Agree with Nathan, (a) and (b) are P0. (c) can be solved by pub serve.

[keertip]

Yes, the plan is for (a) and (b) to go through pub serve once pub serve is ready.

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Removed this from the 1.2 milestone.
Added this to the 1.3 milestone.