Do we need a devcontainer.json?

[reneme]

Botan has very minimal 3rd-party dependencies, making it fairly simple to build from source for new contributors. Therefore, just the (implicit) toolchain requirements don't really justify the introduction of a devcontainer.json (or similar setups).

However, we do have plenty of tool configuration files hidden away in src/editors, src/configs and src/scripts to keep the repository's root directory clutter-free. As a result, any first-time interaction with the code base isn't as frictionless as it could be. At least until one reads contributing.rst carefully.

My suggestion: let's introduce a top-level devcontainer.json that then automagically sets up all the configurations and goodies we have stashed away at the moment. I'm thinking of things like .vscode/, pyproject.toml, .clang-format, .editorconfig and perhaps more that could be lifted into the repo root within the container without maintaining it in the repo root on GitHub.

In the long-term (read: just my wild idea for now) more configurations and development conveniences could be added like that. For instance: something like mise-en-place could improve the accessibility of certain manual development steps that are currently hidden behind scripts and/or documented processes. I'm thinking of things like "running bogo tests", "running TLS anvil", "rolling a release", "running clang-tidy", and such.

[randombit]

I would say my minimal dependencies philosophy here also applies to the tooling required to do development [*]. But AIUI this proposal, this would just be a convenience and not required, yeah?

[*] This is not just an ascetic concern on my part; I pretty regularly do builds/tests/development on machines that I do not have root on, eg the GCC cfarm machines or machines otherwise made available to me for testing. Often the available toolset is basically just GCC/make/vim plus whatever I bother to compile and install into $HOME.

[reneme]

But AIUI this proposal, this would just be a convenience and not required, yeah?

Absolutely! This should never become mandatory at all.