I've been sort of putting off delving into these particular topics as I didn't have anything I wanted to package into an addon, before, and I was spending more time learning Lua and addon development than I was spending thinking about Lua and addon development. The time has come.
I've spent a lot of time reading reference material (officially-, third-party- and individually-published) as I've been learning, and while people talk about and around these things, I have yet to see anything that addresses, cohesively, the scenario of a new addon developer approaching these decision points:
- What are all of the options for storing the code?
Does WoWInterface have its own repository? Is CurseForge's separate from WowAce's? (The CF forum appears to just be a mirror of WA, so...) I'm also pretty sure it's possible to just upload a manually-packaged addon to the addon sites; is that right? Are there any reasons why an author would manually package anything (sufficiently small addon?)?
- Of the repository options, what are the differences?
Which of them would make the most sense to start from scratch on?
I remember reading someone talking about one site having better localization tools, but the other site having better ____. It seems like some (all?) of them can generate documentation from Luadoc style headers? Other stuff? I did some initial reading, over at WowAce, about the process for creating repositories. WowAce looks like it uses Git? Do they all use Git? That brings me to...
- Does anyone have a favorite Git tutorial(s)?
Every time I've tried to learn Git, I've gotten buried up to my ears in questions while the guide just keeps throwing out information that, I swear, would only be useful if the reader already understood it. I probably shouldn't even ask this as I can already explain to myself why learning mechanics rather than an abstraction of mechanics is more wholesome, but: are there any good Windows UIs for managing Git repositories, by now?
- How can I avoid all the pitfalls and gotchas that are possible with stuff like: documentation, packager configuration, cross-site file management, etc.?
I have seen, fairly frequently, authors, who I recognize by name, make posts asking questions about fine details of various components of addon file management and distribution. Is there anywhere outside of the brains of veteran authors where all of these "if you do this, you have to do this like that" guidelines reside?
- Once an author chooses B of sites A..C, what are the best options for getting his/her addon published to the other sites?
I would imagine, given how much back-and-forth I've seen about the sites, that even choosing one over the other might necessitate changes to ensuing processes.
I think that's good enough to start with. If I've just not found the resource that has the answer to one of my questions, a link is just as good as an explanation. Thanks!
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