Add new section, "notes on the codebase". More to come.

svn path=/head/; revision=36647

en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/portbuild/article.sgml

@@ -77,6 +77,50 @@
 
       <listitem><para>for experimental builds</para></listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
+
+    <sect2 id="codebase-notes">
+      <title>Notes on the codebase</title>
+
+      <para>Until mid-2010, the scripts were completely specific to
+	<hostid>pointyhat</hostid> as the head (dispatch) node.  During
+	the summer of 2010, a significant rewrite was done in order to allow
+	for other hosts to be head nodes.  Among the changes were:</para>
+
+      <itemizedlist>
+	<listitem><para>removal of the hard-coding of the string
+	  <literal>pointyhat</literal></para></listitem>
+
+	<listitem><para>factoring out all configuration constants (which
+	  were previously scattered throughout the code) into configuration
+	  files</para></listitem>
+	  <!-- XXX MCL TODO add an href to a new section on how they work -->
+
+	<listitem><para>appending the hostname to the directories
+	  specified by <literal>buildid</literal> (this will allow
+	  directories to be unambigious when copied between machines.)
+	  </para></listitem>
+
+	<listitem><para>making the scripts more robust in terms of setting
+	  up directories and symlinks</para></listitem>
+
+	<listitem><para>where necessary, changing certain script invocations
+	  to make all the above easier</para></listitem>
+
+      </itemizedlist>
+
+      <para>This document was originally written before these changes
+	were made.  Where things such as script invocations have changed,
+	they are denoted as <literal>new codebase:</literal> as opposed
+	to <literal>old codebase:</literal>.</para>
+
+      <note>
+	<para>As of December 2010, <hostid>pointyhat</hostid> is still
+	  running on the old codebase, until the new codebase is considered
+	  rock-solid.</para>
+      </note>
+
+    </sect2>
+
   </sect1>
 
   <sect1 id="management">