JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit — pull request #27 by bmuller (2012-01-27 22:02:25+00:00)
Title: Added script to handle issue w/ autotools and code deployment

So, here's one solution to the issues discussed [here](https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit/pull/26). If you run the following code in a fresh git clone from origin master:

> git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/releases
> rm .git/index
> git clean -fdx
> touch .gitkeep
> git add .gitkeep
> git commit -a -m "first commit to releeases branch"
> git push origin releases

It will create an empty releases branch (just like http://pages.github.com/ instructions). This is all of the set up you'd need to do.

Then, from now on, when you want anyone to be able to use the code in master, just run:

> ./mkdevdist.sh

and that script will update the releases branch with the latest dev release. Anyone without access to the autotools can then just:

> git clone https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit.git -b releases
> ./configure && make && make install

Running ./mkdevdist.sh after each important git push shouldn't be that much of a burden - does this solve the issue?