[webkit-dev] [webkit meeting notes] build systems

[Kevin Ollivier]

Hi Peter,

On Apr 15, 2010, at 9:42 PM, Peter Kasting wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 9:15 PM, Kevin Ollivier <kevino at theolliviers.com> wrote:
> Anyway, my $0.02 is that, in terms of immediate bang for the buck, we're probably better off trying to synchronize the build systems automatically in some way. My perception is that Qt developers will want to use qmake, GTK will want to use autotools, etc. and while some build systems could certainly be merged (e.g. as you say the Win and Mac projects for WebKit itself could be gyp-generated), I don't think we'll ever really narrow it down to one master system for a variety of reasons. I do, however, think we may be able to narrow the 'build system updating' process down to one step / one script that updates all ports simultaneously, and do so without too much effort.
> 
> If I'm not mistaking you, that seems to be the route Evan is discussing, with his concrete proposal being to investigate the feasibility of making gyp be the mechanism by which various different build systems can be generated from a single place (rather than seven).  Or is this not what you were saying?

I was talking about something far more limited, like converting common build file lists from one format to another.

> Since most build systems out there have their data stored in either XML or plain text, converting a build file list from one build system's data format to another is probably not more than a few hours of Python hacking, if that.
> 
> Indeed, we already have MSVC/XCode/makefile generators for gyp, I would assume that given those, a generator for e.g. qmake wouldn't be hard.

Perhaps, but in any case, I think the first step there is for the Gyp developers to try implementing support and see how it goes. However, from that perspective, until Gyp has support for those formats, isn't a discussion about switching for other ports a bit premature on the WebKit side? i.e. that would be next steps for Gyp, not next steps for WebKit. I'd think Gyp would implement support for those formats and then come here and ask people to consider a switch. 

Obviously there is something to discuss on the WebKit / Win and WebKit / Mac side since Gyp can already handle those, but at least for the other ports I was thinking of something less involved than a build system migration of that nature (at least, in the sense of moving to it being auto-generated). My suggestion was about leaving the actual build system untouched but having it include a file (or having a script automatically replace a group of source files in the project file) with a generated list of common build files. More like a script that generates a patch for each build system when changes are made to common build files than auto-generating the whole project file(s). This way the ports can continue to work with and maintain their own build system, but when a common build file is added or removed, a script is run that makes a patch for all build systems. I think that would cover a vast majority of the manual hassle involved in managing the cross-platform build files.

Regards,

Kevin

> I really think someone should seriously consider investing some time and resources into improving this issue though, updating a build system doesn't take long but updating 7-10 build systems on almost a daily basis probably adds up to some pretty significant amount of time and energy that could probably be spent on better things.
> 
> I think that is the shared viewpoint that has led to this discussion.
> 
> PK 

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