new core resources vs symlink core issues

[oscarlevin]

I believe starting with #758, there appears to be some issue with core resources being installed in ~/.ptx and symlink core.

• I don't think that undoing symlink core by running fetch_core.py works anymore.
• At least on Windows, the symlinking is not working. I don't know if this was a problem before with just how windows manages symbolic links.
• Previously we checked the core commit sha to decide whether we needed to update the core resources. It doesn't seem like we are doing this any more, opting instead just to look for folders with the version name installed. This might be why the first bullet is happening.
• At least while trying to develop, I had a failure to install all the core resources (I think because I hadn't fetched core with poetry first) and did not get any indication that something was wrong. I think that the previous messages telling the user that new static resources were being installed were helpful, but they are gone now.

Thoughts @StevenClontz ?

[oscarlevin]

More precisely, the first time I run pretext --version inside poetry, I got an error, that it couldn't find resources/templates.zip. Okay, so I forgot to zip templates. But the second time I ran it, this error didn't happen since it saw the existence of 2.4.2. So we should probably remove the resource directory if it isn't created correctly. Or only copy it to the user's directory if it was successfully created.

[oscarlevin]

Okay, with #774, symlink_core.py correctly creates the dev environment. However, it does not get unlinked ever (unless you delete the latest .ptx folder). We should make it easier for developers, especially of core pretext. Some ideas:

• Create a dev_setup.py script that fetches core, bundles resources, and symlinks core.
• Create a script or option on the dev_setup.py script that unlinks core resources.
• Explore whether it is possible to do this somewhat automatically with poetry
• Update the documentation
• Post announcement on pretext-dev

[StevenClontz]

I'd add:

• Ensure the script runs upon creation of a pretext-cli devcontainer

[oscarlevin]

Agreed.

A further weirdness: After doing a symlink of core, the core/pretext.py file is a symbolic link. Then upon a further fetch_core.py run, it actual core pretext.py file that gets updated in my pretext repository. No biggie, it just whipped out my work twice now.