First, let me warm the tone of this thread a bit with an earnest salute to Adam for trying to solve the problem by actually doing _something_, rather than talking about it, as we've done for years now. My own contributions to the matter are small and insignificant in comparison.
To recall, we do have a real and present problem. Adding files to the all the build systems (and _always_ missing at least one) sucks balls. Needing to use XCode to add new files to WebKit is silly. On the other hand, we have an otherwise well-established and rather smooth workflow and we don't want to give that up, either. With the gyp conversion at this stage, we now have a possible solution to this problem. Given that there aren't any other viable alternatives in the present, please consider the most productive way of contributing: filing well-formulated bugs, blocking bug 55018 (https://bugs.webkit.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=55018&hide_resolved=1). We can then discuss these specific problems and adjust the shape of the solution accordingly. :DG< On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Maciej Stachowiak <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mar 24, 2011, at 12:28 AM, Adam Barth wrote: > >> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On Mar 23, 2011, at 3:33 AM, Adam Barth wrote: >>>> From my perspective, approach (2) is more desirable than checking in >>>> generated project files because approach (2) encapsulates >>>> Apple-internal build process to Apple folks, more specifically to the >>>> Apple folks who interact with the Apple-internal build system. >>>> Checking in generated project files, on the other hand, imposes a >>>> maintenance burden on all WebKit contributors. >>> >>> I believe Apple submissions generally happen with greater frequency than >>> the rate at which new files are added to the project. Furthermore: When >>> files are added to the project, the patch submitted must already run the >>> tool to regenerate projects, and is already going to submit a patch, so the >>> maintenance burden of the Xcode projects being checked in is low. But >>> having to regenerate project files and then check them in on a branch adds >>> extra steps, doing things that are not done in the normal course of >>> development, and therefore may have bitrotted. >> >> Thanks, that's helpful information. Looking at >> <http://trac.webkit.org/log/trunk/Source/WebCore/WebCore.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj>, >> it looks like files are added to the project on the order of once a >> day. > > I slightly underestimated how often files are added to the project (no wonder > our build has gotten so slow!), but the rate is similar. > > (Side note: it looks like 382 files have been added to the WebCore build over > the past year, a ~25% growth rate - if this rate continues, we are in big > trouble.) > >> >>> I don't think you are going to get Apple folks enthusiastic about switching >>> to a build system that creates significantly more work for us, on the basis >>> that it saves everyone else a small amount of work. For that matter, >>> slowing down the pace of Apple engineers' development would be a bad thing >>> for the project overall, not just for Apple. >> >> I certainly have no desire to slow down the pace of development for >> anyone. My overarching goal here is to increase developer >> productivity for everyone by removing the need to learn and correctly >> modify N build systems just to add, remove, or move a file. >> >> From this discussion, it sounds like folks are generally comfortable >> with replacing the existing xcodeproj files with ones generated by >> GYP. Before taking that step, I'm going to spend some more time >> polishing the GYP-generated xcodeproj files, hopefully addressing some >> of Mark's concerns. (I'm also told there are some scheduling issues, >> which I'm happy to accomodate.) >> >> I'm slightly skeptical that checking in generated files will scale as >> we unify more of the build systems, but we can cross that bridge when >> we come to it. > > Other ports probably do not have so many strange requirements driven by an > external build system, so I'm not sure it will be as necessary. That being > said the average WebKit developer updates or builds much more often than he > or she changes a project file, so it may be the right tradeoff to save people > the most total time. > > Regards, > Maciej > > _______________________________________________ > webkit-dev mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev > _______________________________________________ webkit-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
