Documentation: have a list of common best practices

[mkbosmans]

After figuring out the first steps building stuff with EasyBuild, the problem then becomes how to set it all up in order to support the end-users. Of course, every site is different and has it's own policies, but it would be nice to have an overview of operating procedures that seem to be working for other people.

Some things that are not really clear now:

• What is a nice strategy for introducing new toolchains and deprecating old ones?
• How to manage site-specific modifications to easyconfigs: git repo of archive or separate?
• Should I use --try-toolchain, or copy an exisiting easyconfig and edit it for a new toolchain?
• Is using the latest release of easybuild with a git checkout of the latest easyconfig repo a good strategy?
• How to support multiple platforms/operating systems/architectures
• How to neatly manage Python/R packages. E.g. with bundles.

If an overview of site setups is made or updated (perhaps using the presentations from the user meeting), the overview of best practices can be generated by grouping the choices several sites made around each subject/question above.

[boegel]

Related PR: #264

Other potential topics for best practices:

• attention points when building software for new architectures, e.g. Intel Skylake & AVX512
• performance vs accuracy trade-offs that can be made (compiler options)
• possible strategies for retiring installed software

It would probably be a good idea to poll for more suggestions on potential topics on the EasyBuild mailing list, and then try to tackle one subject at a time (e.g. discuss one specific thing at length during an EasyBuild conf call, take detailed notes and use that as a base to flesh out that specific section).