A few places on meta and on the blog advise git pull before ./launcher rebuild app. I’ve never done git pull, only the latter, and my Discourse instance seems to update fine. What’s the value of git pull?
AI-generated summary
Git pull needed?
The value of running git pull before ./launcher rebuild app is to update the discourse_docker repo, including the launcher program. mpalmer notes that improvements are made to the repo, but less frequently than updates to the application. Since March 2015, sam implemented self-updating for the launcher. Therefore, git pull is only necessary when running an old version of discourse-docker; otherwise, ./launcher rebuild app is sufficient. codinghorror suggests removing git pull from instructions, opting for a simpler two-line approach.
The git pull brings down new versions of the discourse_docker repo, which is the launcher program itself (and all its supporting materials). We do, from time to time, make useful improvements there, although it’s far less frequent (and critical) than updating the application itself.
Also, @sam taught the launcher to update itself in March 2015:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker/commit/098533cb0b2bbea0e55ead77f7bc1b8c668965c0
So you only need to run git pull once if you’re still on an older version, a ./launcher rebuild app will be sufficient after that.
Is this still true @sam? Even our template reply still says git pull in it..
git pull is needed if you are on an old version of discourse-docker, that is why I always but it in with my instructions.
No idea if people are running 3 year old versions of discourse docker.
Hmm I think we should drop it at this point, two lines is more better than three.