Add docs for building a version release for project

docs/index.rst

@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ Table of Contents
    create-project
    start-docs
    configure
+   pkg-release
 
 
 Indices and tables

docs/pkg-release.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+
+.. highlight:: sh
+
+Build a Release for the Project
+===============================
+
+Even though our app does very little at this stage, we wish to go ahead and
+"release" our first version for it.
+
+.. note::
+   Whether or not you actually need to build releases for your project, may
+   depend on your use case.  For instance if you have reason to run the app(s)
+   directly from source (i.e. git HEAD) then you may have no use for a built
+   package.
+
+
+Project Versioning
+------------------
+
+The project's current version "number" is kept in only one place really, in our
+case ``~/src/rattail-tutorial/rattail_tutorial/_version.py``.  Other files are
+configured to read the current project version from there.
+
+The initial version for a new project will generally be '0.1.0' and it's
+assumed that subsequent versions will be '0.1.1' then '0.1.2' etc. until you've
+decided that it's time to do a '0.2.0' release, and the cycle begins again.
+
+You can be as aggressive or conservative as you like when it comes to
+incrementing the more "major" parts of the version number, e.g. you can
+increment conservatively to where you've just released say, '0.1.427' before you
+finally go to '0.2.0'.  The only real "requirement" (assumption) here is that
+you will build a new version release *every time* you update the production
+environment(s).  Sometimes that may mean multiple releases in a given day,
+e.g. if the first one ships with a bug and you have to push a release to fix.
+
+
+Install Invoke
+--------------
+
+While you can most certainly go about the build/release task in various ways,
+the convention within Rattail-land is to use `Invoke`_.
+
+.. _Invoke: https://www.pyinvoke.org/
+
+So next we'll install that to your virtualenv::
+
+   pip install invoke
+
+You may also want to declare this within your project's dependencies (in
+``setup.py``), but that's up to you.
+
+
+Create Tasks File
+-----------------
+
+The ``invoke`` command will invoke tasks which we have defined in a tasks file.
+(Duh!)
+
+We will now create a file at ``~/src/rattail-tutorial/tasks.py`` and in it
+place some minimal contents:
+
+.. code-block:: python3
+
+   # -*- coding: utf-8; -*-
+   """
+   Tasks for 'rattail-tutorial' project
+   """
+
+   from invoke import task
+
+   # this is needed to read current `__version__` value
+   #import os
+   #here = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
+   #exec(open(os.path.join(here, 'rattail_tutorial', '_version.py')).read())
+
+
+   @task
+   def release(c):
+       """
+       Release a new version of `rattail-tutorial`.
+       """
+       # clear out previous package info
+       c.run('rm -rf rattail_tutorial.egg-info')
+
+       # build fresh package!
+       c.run('python setup.py sdist --formats=gztar')
+
+       # enable this if you intend to publish package to PyPI
+       #c.run('twine upload dist/rattail-tutorial-{}.tar.gz'.format(__version__))
+
+If you're creating your own project then you can use the above as a starting
+point for your own file.  Instead of using ``twine`` to upload the package to
+`PyPI`_, you may need to push to some private package repository which you
+control.
+
+.. _PyPI: https://pypi.org/
+
+
+Run Release Task
+----------------
+
+As you can see above, ``release`` is the one and only task we have defined so
+far.  In most cases that will be the only task you ever define for the project,
+but YMMV.
+
+At any rate it's all we need for now, so let's run it::
+
+   cd ~/src/rattail-tutorial
+   invoke release
+
+If you're feeling lazy you can even shorten that second one to::
+
+   inv release
+
+This will build a new "release" which may then be found within e.g. the
+``~/src/rattail-tutorial/dist/`` folder.  Depending on the specifics of your
+tasks file, this release may also be uploaded to some (public or private)
+package index.

docs/start-docs.rst

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 
 .. highlight:: sh
 
-Documenting Your Project
-========================
+Document Your Project
+=====================
 
 At this point we assume you already have created a new project, and established
 the Git repo for it etc.