[Buildbot-devel] Comparing Buildbot with Jenkins: ease of setup issues

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Dan Kegel <dank at kegel.com> wrote:
> I wonder how hard it would be to add a web front end
> to manage simple buildbot configurations, to address
> the "Jenkins is easier to set up for simple projects"
> problem.

This comes up periodically, and I think is a worthy pursuit.
* Ideas for config UIs come up periodically.  These could be
implemented by writing config to new db tables, and then loading that
config in master.cfg.
* http://trac.buildbot.net/ticket/2218 describes declarative config,
addressing some of the problems with the Python-as-config paradigm.
* Development of the Buildbot tutorial was a good step in setting up a
more gentle on-ramp to Buildbot.

Keep in mind that the web config is not the single distinguishing
factor -- in fact, it quickly becomes one of Jenkins' limitations, at
least for UNIX people who are accustomed to text-file configurations.

It's also worth noting that Buildbot and Jenkins are not "competitors"
- this is open source, and an ecosystem with two significant projects
at different points on the usability and flexibility scales is a
*good* thing.  Making Buildbot easier to get started with will be a
great improvement, but it should not come at a cost to any of
Buildbot's existing strengths.

Hopefully that helps to frame the question.  The rest is up to you!

Dustin