Backport PR #9211: Release process tweaks

Things I ran into while releasing 4.1.1.

The only one that might be controversial is removing the `python -m compileall` check before we build packages. Because this is hardcoded to `python`, it runs on Python 2 on my system, and fails on one of our tools scripts that happens to be Python 3 only. We could make this smarter, but I don't think it's worth it. We now have continuous integration and editors with built in static analysis, so if we make a file invalid Python syntax we'll know about it well before release.

I also ran into a problem in that I don't have access to archive.ipython.org (I'm sure I did on one of my other computers, but I forget which). There should probably be a check for that somewhere earlier in the build process, but I haven't included it here.

docs/source/coredev/release_process.rst

@@ -102,7 +102,7 b" release is: ``1.3rc1``. Notice that there is no separator between the '3' and"
 the 'r'.
 
 
-Commit the changes to release.py and jsversion::
+Commit the changes to release.py::
 
     git commit -am "release $VERSION"
     git push origin $BRANCH

tools/build_release

@@ -4,7 +4,7 b''
 import os
 from shutil import rmtree
 
-from toollib import sh, pjoin, get_ipdir, cd, compile_tree, execfile, sdists, buildwheels
+from toollib import sh, pjoin, get_ipdir, cd, execfile, sdists, buildwheels
 
 def build_release():
 
@@ -15,9 +15,6 b' def build_release():'
     # Load release info
     execfile(pjoin('IPython', 'core', 'release.py'), globals())
 
-    # Check that everything compiles
-    compile_tree('*')
-
     # Cleanup
     for d in ['build', 'dist', pjoin('docs', 'build'), pjoin('docs', 'dist'),
               pjoin('docs', 'source', 'api', 'generated')]:

tools/toollib.py

@@ -49,17 +49,8 b' def get_ipdir():'
         raise SystemExit('Invalid ipython directory: %s' % ipdir)
     return ipdir
 
-
-def compile_tree(folder='.'):
-    """Compile all Python files below current directory."""
-    stat = os.system('python -m compileall {}'.format(folder))
-    if stat:
-        msg = '*** ERROR: Some Python files in tree do NOT compile! ***\n'
-        msg += 'See messages above for the actual file that produced it.\n'
-        raise SystemExit(msg)
-
 try:
-    execfile
+    execfile = execfile
 except NameError:
     def execfile(fname, globs, locs=None):
         locs = locs or globs