[webkit-dev] Runtime setting for incomplete features

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Oct 5, 2009, at 9:54 PM, Mark Rowe wrote:

>
> On 2009-10-05, at 21:48, Darin Fisher wrote:
>
>> It is a matter of our process that we do not change the  
>> configuration when promoting builds.  The bits that passed the test  
>> get promoted.
>>
>> I'm happy to absorb this cost in the V8 bindings.  I don't think it  
>> is important to solve this problem for the JSC bindings since there  
>> is not a consumer that yet needs the same.
>
> The present state of Web Sockets is that they're compiled in on Mac  
> OS X but disabled via the runtime setting.  This leads to them being  
> detectable in the manner Sam mentioned.  Either the compile-time  
> setting needs to be fixed for Mac OS X or the runtime code fixed so  
> that the feature is not detectable when disabled.  I assume that we  
> want regression testing of the feature so disabling it at compile  
> time does not seem like the best idea.  I guess it comes down to  
> whether or not it's in good enough shape to be useful to web sites  
> at this time.

I think WebSockets should be compiled in and enabled on Mac OS X. I  
don't think we even need a way to turn them off at runtime for non- 
Chromium ports. The policy we generally follow for nightly builds is  
that we enable new features unless they would create significant  
problems with normal browsing, or major security risk, for users of  
the nightlies. We do sometimes disable optional features shortly  
before branching WebKit for release (apparently unlike the Chromium  
process) and I don't believe we've ever had a bug caused by that. We  
certainly wouldn't ship a production build of WebKit on Mac OS X with  
a feature compiled in but disabled at runtime.

Regards,
Maciej

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