Docs: installing a development environment

[woutdenolf]

https://mxcubeweb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev/environment.html#create-the-mxcubeweb-conda-environment

It mentions this command, but this is not a valid conda command:

conda env create -f conda-environment.yml python=3.9

SpecNotFound: Invalid name 'python=3.9', try the format: user/package

There is no one-step way of doing this afaik. Hence this open issue: conda/conda#12313.

[fabcor-maxiv]

Related but different issue: #1383, in this other issue we address the fact that resolving for Python 3.9 (and 3.8, but not 3.10 and 3.11) would fail anyway.

[marcus-oscarsson]

Where are we with this, do we recommend people to use conda i.e. doing something like:

conda env create --name mxcubeweb python=3.x
conda env update --name mxcubeweb -f conda-environment.yml

It seems like @fabcor-maxiv mentioned that one could do it in one go using micromamba:

micromamba create -f conda-environment.yml 'python==3.8' 

I don't really have a strong opinion about it, but there is perhaps something I overlooked with this. It would be nice if we could update the documentation accordingly though :)

[fabcor-maxiv]

I still want to investigate this, and I am open to input from others.

I almost always use micromamba, I sometimes use mamba, and I almost never use conda. As far as I know most people use conda, so we should aim to find something that works for conda.

We could also simply remove this block from the documentation and let it to people to figure it out on their own if they need this. Maybe we should review why we added this block in the first place.

[marcus-oscarsson]

Closing as replaced by #1383 and #1410

[fabcor-maxiv]

I am going with conda and two commands: #1412.