dev: can't run dev builder without many unnecessary prereqs

[andreimatei]

We have a bazel builder container whose purpose is, I believe, to let people build CRDB without having to install stuff on their local system. In practice, however, getting to that container requires installing all sorts of things, which defeats its purpose. The intended way to run this container is, I believe, dev container. But:

1. dev requires bazel to be installed in order to run anything - including dev help and dev builder. Installing bazel is a pain. I think this requirement comes from dev-the-shell-script needing bazel in order to build dev-the-binary.

2. dev doctor needs to pass once before any other dev subcommand works - again, including dev help and dev builder. If dev doctor never passed before, you get messages about how dev doctor's status needs to be updated. dev doctor requires a cmake upgrade, making it a big pain and again defeating the purpose of the container.

3. I failed to run the cockroachdb/bazel container by hand, with Docker but without going through dev. The first problem is that we don't seem to have a latest tag applied to the container images. Even when using a image id, I failed to run the container because of some root issue. I haven't looked into how dev builder does it.

Filing this after looking over @ipopov's shoulder trying to build crdb for the first time.

Jira issue: CRDB-16388

Epic CRDB-17171

[rickystewart]

#82522 will take care of the requirement to run dev doctor.

I think this requirement comes from dev-the-shell-script needing bazel in order to build dev-the-binary

This is exactly right.

I didn't know that people were having trouble getting bazel (bazelisk) installed. The bazelisk binaries themselves are very small, so we could conceivably vendor them in-tree. 🤷

[andreimatei]

I didn't know that people were having trouble getting bazel (bazelisk) installed. The bazelisk binaries themselves are very small, so we could conceivably vendor them in-tree. shrug

Even figuring out that there is such a thing as bazelisk is too much hurdle. Not to mention that the instructions for installing bazelisk talk about OSX, then say that on windows you do choco install, and then conspicuously stop with no Linux.
Instead of pushing on getting parts of the build working more easily, I for one would prefer an easier way to get into that container. Like, perhaps we could get dev builder working exclusively in shell. Or, otherwise, if we had instructions on how to use docker directly.
If I want to build outside of the container, I don't mind the pain of figuring out how to install bazel and everything else (particularly if we provide good instructions).