[webkit-dev] Proposal to enable compile flags only for EWS run

[Bruno Abinader]

Hi WebKit :)

As previously discussed, we decided that compile flag only was the
best option for CSS3 Text Decoration feature set (landed in
http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/125716 ). I believe this was a
general decision and got promptly implemented as such (however I still
maintain a runtime flag patch at
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93966 in case it is ever
needed).

What I want to discuss is an issue that raises with the decision to
only have compile flag: As it comes disabled by default, further
development on this feature will not be able to be checked by EWS or
any other build bot. This affects layout tests regression checking and
compile-time error checking, so I wonder how can we manage to fix
this? I have some proposals below:

1) Propose a special "EWS-only" build variable to contain compile
flags not enabled by default.
I might not know how difficult it would be to implement this, but
sounds like a clean approach to me.

2) Change compile flag value to become enabled by default.
I believe this is not possible because, as discussed earlier, it would
prematurely expose the feature to the web.

3) Add runtime flag, so compile flag would be enabled by default, but
runtime flag would be disabled.
That was I actually proposed in
http://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-August/021878.html
(CSS Regions implements like this, with both compile and runtime
flags).

Assuming that 2) and 3) are not possible due to previous discussion,
this makes me wonder if 1) is feasible. I believe other feature flags
might had the same situation before, so how you guys managed to check
for errors? I appreciate your input and feedback!

Best regards,

-- 
Bruno de Oliveira Abinader