pudl-dev - undocumented dependency on C compiler

[TrentonBush]

Describe the bug

I made a new VM that apparently didn't have gcc installed. When creating the pudl-dev conda environment, the pip install of bitarray broke and caused a build failure.

Bug Severity

How badly is this bug affecting you?

• Low: This is a straightforward dependency fix for users with technical experience, but it would be nicer if the dependency was explicit. Unfortunately C compilers are platform dependent and this cannot be solved by adding something like 'gcc' to the environment.yml. In my case I did conda install gcc_linux-64, but I'm not sure what other platforms need.

To Reproduce

uninstall gcc from your machine/environment

git clone git@github.com:catalyst-cooperative/pudl.git conda env create --name pudl-dev --file devtools/environment.yml

Expected behavior

expected a clean install of a new conda environment

Software Environment?

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04
• pudl repo commit hash: 2a0fe38f

[zaneselvans]

Hmm, I've never had this issue, but I've probably never tried to install it on a machine without GCC. It seems like there must be some way to ensure that a platform specific version of GCC is installed locally through conda.