[Mesa-dev] [RFC libdrm 0/2] Replace the build system with meson

[Dylan Baker]

Quoting Emil Velikov (2017-03-23 04:39:50)
> On 22 March 2017 at 20:10, Dylan Baker <dylan at pnwbakers.com> wrote:
> 
> The more frustrating part is that atm autotools build is "bug-free"
> and with meson will have to go through the same route again :-\

Sure, but if it's easier to get right (which I'm asserting it is), then meson
should pay off in the long run by needing less maintenance to remain "bug-free",
since fewer bugs will be introduced.

> Slightly off-topic - 3 days to write the build script for ~10 [nearly]
> identical libraries which do not do anything fancy, seems a lot.
> Which was the most time consuming part ?

Mostly talking with Matt about which patterns from autotools don't make sense to
port to meson. Also in those 3-4 days were a stab at mesa that made me realize
it was too big a of project for the first go, and picking a smaller, simpler
first project made sense. Honestly the about half of that time was spent reading
autotools documentation to figure out what some of the macros did, and then
reading meson bugs to figure out what the meson equivalent is. I have
familiarity with cmake, but this was the first major work with autotools I've
done. At this point working on Mesa the meson is just coming and I spend a lot
more time reading autotools documentation and asking Matt "What does X do, and
does it have side effects?"

> 
> I'm concerned that we would have to enforce the same time penalty onto
> dozens of developers unfamiliar with meson.

Eric (who as done a lot more autotools than me) said it took him 2 days to
become a more comfortable with meson than autotools, having written autotools
for 10 years. Asking Eric, Daniel Stone, or Peter Hutterer, who all have much
more autotools experience than me, would probably be more useful to answer that
question. I can say this, it took me significantly less time to become fluent
with meson than to become passable with cmake.

Dylan
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