1365279 - mozboot: Don't prompt for clone target location

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Ralph Giles (:rillian)]

Toward the end of its run, mozboot, when run in stand-alone mode as bootstrap.py, prompts for a target location to clone mozilla-central into.

This strikes me as a bit odd. The point of bootstrap.py is to automate the long list of complicated steps required to start contributing to the Firefox codebase, and what exactly the local hg repo is called seems a pretty trivial question. We also use 'blank' as a way to signal "I'd rather use git, thanks" so we can't provide a default.

I think we should just ask 'Do you want to checkout the source code? Y/n' and target mozilla-central in the current directory to match the build instructions. It can always be moved/renamed later.

If we add support for cloning with git, it can become "Do you want to checkout the source code? 1) with git 2) with hg 3) not right now."

Comment 1

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

The main question isn't what to call the repo but where to clone it to. We want to allow users to clone to any directory of their choosing, not necessarily pwd. I think the existing prompt is sufficient until we offer Git, at which point I agree with changing the prompts to "type of clone" + "path".

Comment 2

[Ralph Giles (:rillian)]

I don't this this really addresses the issue I raised, which the the cognitive burden of answering all these questions. Surely one can move the repo if one doesn't like the pwd location.

What about: 1 a numerical prompt for git vs hg, and then prompt for the clone target location with a default? If the git is chosen we can stub that with an instruction link.