[webkit-dev] Moving WTF out of JavaScriptCore

[Kevin Ollivier]

On Feb 9, 2011, at 2:08 PM, Mark Rowe wrote:

> 
> On 2011-02-09, at 14:05, Adam Barth wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Mark Rowe <mrowe at apple.com> wrote:
>>> On 2011-02-09, at 13:06, Adam Barth wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Dec 22, 2010, at 12:06 PM, Adam Barth wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Mark Rowe <mrowe at apple.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2010-12-22, at 10:34, Adam Barth wrote:
>>>>>>>> As an aside, would creating the Sources directory make it easier to
>>>>>>>> move WTF out of JavaScriptCore?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I don't think that the location of the source on disk is a big factor in
>>>>>>> WTF's presence in JavaScriptCore.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Oh, I thought the main involved in creating a new top-level source
>>>>>> directory was the main thing causing WTF to live inside
>>>>>> JavaScriptCore.  I know we've talked about moving it out of
>>>>>> JavaScriptCore for a while now.  Is that just a matter of someone
>>>>>> (e.g., me) doing the work or are there other limiting factors?
>>>>> 
>>>>> If we switch to a top-level Sources directory, and on the Apple-internal side switch to submitting WebKit to the OS build using this single top-level sources directory, then it's easy to make new top-level directories without disrupting anything.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If we don't do the above, we'd have to set things up so we can submit WTF separately to the build to cope, and we'd need to make it build a static library and install private headers.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So I think it is easier to make this change if we do the Sources/ change first.
>>>> 
>>>> Now that we've moved all the source code into Source, I'd like to try
>>>> moving WTF out of JavaScriptCore.  Is there anything on the
>>>> Apple-internal side that needs to happen first?
>>> 
>>> Maciej's response above mentions that we need to make some internal process changes before it's easy to add new top-level projects without disrupting things.  Unless there's some urgent reason to move WTF I'd prefer that you hold off on doing this.
>> 
>> Would it make sense to set a target date in the future for making
>> these internal changes?  I'm certainly not in a rush, but I'd also
>> like to make progress on this at some point.
> 
> I don't think that would be useful.  The changes that block this are the same changes that prevent us from removing the concept of forwarding headers. We're as interested as you are in seeing them done.

I'm also very interested in seeing this done, as it affects the wx port too, and I know from trying to make header changes to WTF (and watching all the breakages) that almost all ports have hacks along the lines of forwarding headers that deal with the issue of WTF being a separate project in theory, but a private implementation detail of JSC in practice. Pulling WTF out of JSC would, I think, go a long way to undoing a lot of those hacks and reducing the time and maintenance cost of making changes to WTF.

Is the problem here that these internal changes are very difficult and/or time consuming to implement? I wish I could help somehow because I'd much rather spend time trying to fix this problem the right way and for good than spending that time sorting out all the build breakages every time I try to do something like add a new header to WTF that I want to be widely available among ports and projects in WebKit. 

Kevin

> - Mark
> 
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