I have to admit I sympathize with Moritz's view. Since `-c` only
"subsumes" the case where we call 'configure' with no extra env var or
argument, and in the absence of a generic way to pass options to
'configure' when using -c, I'd quite like to keep -c as a "cherry on
top", for users who just need to boot and configure with the default
arguments and for whom hadrian provides a way to save a few keystrokes.
Just like Moritz, I'm not even sure it would make all that much sense to
provide a way to pass configure arguments through hadrian, I have a hard
time seeing a better UX than just running configure with the extra
arguments directly and _then_ calling hadrian to start the build.
On 15/03/2019 14:35, Moritz Angermann wrote:
Hi Arnaud,
On Mar 15, 2019, at 8:32 PM, Spiwack, Arnaud <arnaud.spiw...@tweag.io> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 7:20 PM Herbert Valerio Riedel <hvrie...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I don't have the ticket number at my fingertips but it should be fairly easy to
find.
I'm afraid it doesn't appear to be. Could you share your arguments in this
thread?
This was the last one that lead to the current `-c` state:
- https://github.com/snowleopard/hadrian/issues/457
There is also
- https://github.com/snowleopard/hadrian/issues/655
if you look through the issues on snowleopard/hadrian and sort by comment
frequency
you'll likely find quite a lot of further discussion about not making configure
and
boot the default.
On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 3:10 AM Moritz Angermann <moritz.angerm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
It's magically conflating two different phases with `-c`. The configure phase
and
the build phase. Making this the default means it's always magic. I don't like
magic!
Unfortunately, I really don't understand what you are saying. What's magic
about combining the phases?
We have two phases:
Phase 1: autoconf
This phase is essentially a code-generation phase, where specific templates
are
instantiated to configure time value. Which again can be split into two
specific
subproblems:
- Generation of the configure script from the configure.ac and aclocal.m4
files
using autoconf.
- Generating code using the configure script by computing configure time
calues
and filling those into the `.in` files producing the files that lack the
`.in`
extension.
Phase 2: building
This has been traditionally the job of make, and this is what hadrian should
replace.
By subsuming the configure phase (by invoking ./configure) from hadrian we loose
the phase distinction and if the `-c` flag is optional, users will *not even
see*
a flag that indicates that the system will run `./configure` for them. This is
the
magic I'm referring to and to which I strongly object. If we can retire
autoconf
and do the whole configuration in hadrian, that story may change. But as long
as
we are using an autoconf based configuration we should *not* run that magically.
The `-c` flag is at least there to show that hadrian is explicilty instructed to
run configure.
./configure supports its own set of flags, if hadrian subsumes those, we'd need
some generic way of passing flags to ./configure, at which point I have to ask
why do we do this in the first place and try to call ./configure from within
hadrian?
Unless you want to reconfigure ghc, or hack on it's autoconf part, you are
likely
going to run the following only:
./boot --hadrian
./configure <your flags of choice>
./hadrian/build.sh -j<N> ...
./hadrian/build.sh -j<N> ...
./hadrian/build.sh -j<N> ...
./hadrian/build.sh -j<N> ...
...
the configure step is required, and should be explicit. That is where you
configure
your ghc build. Set host/build/target values, and other configure flags that
influence how you want your ghc to be configure. Hadrian is there to build that
configuration. Mixing both may be convenient but hides the fact that there is a
./configure step. I consider this hiding to be magic which is meant to benefit
the
user but hides what's really going on. And again I don't like magic.
Cheers,
Moritz
PS: we also don't hide the `./configure` step in the usual `./configure <args>
&& make -j`
instructions when building other software, even though you could surely
hack that into
your Makefile if you so wanted to. Why start with ghc now?
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