[Mesa-dev] initial meson port

[Jose Fonseca]

On 21/09/17 01:20, Eric Anholt wrote:
> Dylan Baker <dylan at pnwbakers.com> writes:
>> Results
>> autotools : sh -c   535.34s user 30.33s system 310% cpu 3:02.05 total
>> meson     : sh -c   136.58s user 11.98s system 372% cpu 39.895 total
> 
> I just want to point at these numbers again.  meson is so transformative
> for your normal build/test cycles that it's worth it even if we have to
> duplicate source lists.  I know these aren't quite representative
> because of all of automake's checks that haven't been done for meson,
> but here's what we had for the X server conversion:
> 
> 			autotools:   meson:
> no-op build              0.83         0.49
> touch Makefile.am        1.28
> touch configure.ac      16.68
> touch meson.build                     2.92
> clean ccache build      16.74         1.44
> clean build             52.24        27.84
> 
> Hopefully we can replace two of our build systems (hopefully android and
> scons?) with this one, and then I think it will definitely be less
> developer build system maintenance, even with duplicated source lists.
> I'd be curious to hear what the vmware folks would need from meson in
> order to drop scons, and I'd be willing to put in a good bit of work to
> make it happen.

The idea of a unified build system for Mesa certainly appeals to me. 
And while I'm an happy CMake user, I don't think I'd ever pick scons 
again for a new projects, so personally I wouldn't be sorry to see it 
go.  That said, I simply can't comment on what I still don't know.

I'd like to complete the mesademos meson conversion first to gain better 
and 1st hand understanding of it.  I did try to collaborate on that, but 
I hit a wall, and I will need some help to make progress.

Namely we need to find a solution to consume stuff like glew/freeglut as 
DLL, without having to compile their sources with meson, because I'm 
afraid that porting glew/freeglut to meson in order to port mesademos on 
meson is simply a bit too big to chew, and the wrap modules are just too 
awkward to jump on for a beginner.  More on this on the separate thread.

Jose