a day ago
- docs.rs hosts documentation for Rust packages by building them from source using cargo doc and rustdoc, which is resource-intensive and risky because build.rs can execute arbitrary code.
- The author, a Rust developer working on the rcc C compiler, encountered a frustrating issue where docs.rs links to specific versions and redirecting to the latest version used to go to the home page instead of preserving the current page.
- After a long-standing issue existed for about a year and a half, the author attempted to contribute but faced difficulties with the outdated Vagrant-based local development setup.
- The author wrote a Dockerfile for local development, which impressed the team and was subsequently adopted in production.
- After about a month of work, the original change was merged, and the author was invited to the docs.rs team.
- The author continues to contribute and thanks the community for support.