Re: Report from Build Team Sprint

[Nicholas Nethercote]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 7:56 AM, David Burns  wrote:

>
> we started working on
> replacing the Autoconf configure script. We are planning to replace the old
> shell and m4 code with sandboxed python, which will allow us to have
> improved performance (especially on Windows), parallel configure checks,
> better caching, and improved maintainability.
>

Speaking to the last point as someone who is not a build system peer but
nonetheless ends up mucking about with the build system a moderate amount:

- the (ongoing) conversion from Makefile.in files to (sandboxed Python)
moz.build files has made those files *much* easier to understand and modify;

- converting configure.in to sandboxed Python code should have similar
benefits.

Good stuff.

Nick
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Report from Build Team Sprint

[David Burns]

February 22-26 saw the build team gathered in San Francisco to discuss all
the work that is required to speed up developer ergonomics around building
Firefox.

After discussing all the major items of work we want to work on in the
first half of this year (of which there are many), we started working on
replacing the Autoconf configure script. We are planning to replace the old
shell and m4 code with sandboxed python, which will allow us to have
improved performance (especially on Windows), parallel configure checks,
better caching, and improved maintainability.

We have also added more support for artifact builds
.
If you use Git as part of your Firefox development, you will now be able to
get the latest artifacts for your builds. This will benefit anyone not
currently working on C++ code in Mozilla-Central. Support for C++
developers will be worked on later in the year.

We were also able to add more data points to the telemetry work. This is
still in development and being beta tested by Engineering Productivity
before we ask for more people to submit their build data.

There was also work to see if we can get speed ups by using different
versions of compilers. We are noticing huge gains by upgrading to newer
versions but some of the upgrades require some work before we can deploy
them. When we are looking to do the upgrade we will email the list to warn
you.

David Burns
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