Vega-strike-engine-source: Quick Dev Setup on Windows Dev Box (Ansible?)

[BenjamenMeyer]

Developers need various configurations to support work on the project. Most platforms are easy; however; Windows is another matter. A number of us also don't have Windows systems and may therefore be utilizing the one of the Microsoft provided VMs (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/) to support the effort; however, this also means that the VMs may need to get rebuild periodically. Therefore...

We should build a set of Ansible scripts to enable folks to quickly configure a Windows system from scratch for development purposes.

Target Systems:

• [ ] VMs provided by Microsoft (see https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/)

Roles should include:

• [ ] download and install the supported compiler (VS2017)
• [ ] download and install any dependencies
  
  
  
  • [ ] cmake
  
  
  • [ ] Libraries
  
  

There should be several sets of playbooks:

• [ ] developer - full build environment (libraries with sources)
• [ ] tester - basic build environment (binary libraries)
• [ ] end-user - binary install only

NOTE: This could be done in the repository here, which may help keep it up-to-date, or possibly in a new repository. Not sure which is best to do; though I kind of lean towards putting it in its own repository.

[BenjamenMeyer]

I've downloaded a VM but haven't tested it yet. Ansible should be a viable solution - though https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/windows_setup.html does note some potential issues. We'll have to experiment and determine feasibility or if there is another means (Chocolatey) that can be easily used to do the same with minimal effort.

Primary goal is to have something real simple, repeatable, and easy to use so a VM can be spun up, configured, and snapshot'd.

Proposing Ansible here b/c (a) it's a good tool, (b) it can give us multiple profiles easily, and (c) it can easily be run from the host system.

[nabaco]

For managing dependencies we can simply supply a NuPKG created by VCPK. That's if we manage to compile the game on Windows :)

[BenjamenMeyer]

@stephengtuggy thoughts? since you've been doing the VC++ work recently. Is there a script or something devs can use to quickly get going on a Windows dev box?

[stephengtuggy]

One of the biggest steps is simply installing Visual Studio with all the correct options/components checked. There might be a way to automate this, but it would take a lot of work, and I don't know how to do it yet.

[BenjamenMeyer]

One of the biggest steps is simply installing Visual Studio with all the correct options/components checked. There might be a way to automate this, but it would take a lot of work, and I don't know how to do it yet.

Perhaps for now documenting it would be a good first step.

[stephengtuggy]

One of the biggest steps is simply installing Visual Studio with all the correct options/components checked. There might be a way to automate this, but it would take a lot of work, and I don't know how to do it yet.

Perhaps for now documenting it would be a good first step.

@BenjamenMeyer documented in #503

[stephengtuggy]

Note that both @ministerofinformation and I, as well as the CI pipeline, are actually using Visual Studio 2019, not 2017 like I thought we would.

[stephengtuggy]

cmake is installed by vcpkg, which in turn is installed by script/bootstrap.ps1. It might still be a good idea to install cmake independently of vcpkg.