[PATCH i-g-t v6] igt-runner fact checking

[Luca Coelho]

On Tue, 2024-11-19 at 11:07 +0100, Peter Senna Tschudin wrote:
> 
> On 19.11.2024 09:19, Luca Coelho wrote:
> > On Mon, 2024-11-18 at 17:03 +0100, Peter Senna Tschudin wrote:
> > > 
> > > On 18.11.2024 14:07, Luca Coelho wrote:
> > > > This makes me start thinking... it would be so much easier to make all
> > > > this in python.  Would it be possible to glue a python script to igt-
> > > > runner (or whoever calls it) and get the data from dmesg, lsmod etc.?
> > > > Or otherwise aren't there any libraries already used by IGT that
> > > > include list handling?
> > > 
> > > Absolutely no python here. Never! :-)
> > 
> > Oh, well.  Can't really argue against dogmas...
> 
> Wow, that was a low punch.

Oh, sorry for that, it was not my intention to punch you at all, much
less a low punch. ;) But it seemed like a dry, I-don't-even-want-to-
talk-about-it statement to me, without any explanations, which looks
like a dogma to me...


> This code is going to run about 1M times / day in our CI. There is history
> that precedes me working on IGT of issues created by trying to mix c and
> python in igt. The reasons for not trying python again are runtime overhead
> and the history of such attempts in igt that just made a bunch of people and
> our CI very upset.

Okay, now that's an explanation. :) It makes some sense, and obviously
I'm not trying to change how the entire IGT framework is implemented. 
But looking at all this C code doing something that can be done in way
fewer lines in python, just got me wondering.

I think the previous IGT trials with python were probably not really
done right, because I'm pretty sure it could be made in a way that
would be very efficient.  Probably not having C invoke a shell to run
python, but some proper bindings, or maybe even better, having python
wrap around the C code.

In this specific case, I think you could neatly wrap some python around
igt-runner to gather these facts.  But TBH I don't even know the
details of how igt-runner and everything else is invoked in IGT...

In any case, if using python is an established no-no in IGT, all this
conversation is moot.

I'll reply to the rest of your email later, when I find some more time
again.


--
Cheers,
Luca.