[Mesa-dev] [PATCH] autotools: Deprecate the use of autotools

Wed Dec 19 18:02:07 UTC 2018

FWIW, with all the feedback I've given, I think autotools is not better
than meson. The issues that I reported won't make me switch back to
autotools.

Marek

On Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 12:45 PM Jason Ekstrand <jason at jlekstrand.net wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 10:32 AM Ilia Mirkin <imirkin at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 11:03 AM Jason Ekstrand <jason at jlekstrand.net>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 9:32 AM Ilia Mirkin <imirkin at alum.mit.edu>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 10:25 AM Matt Turner <mattst88 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 8:06 AM Ilia Mirkin <imirkin at alum.mit.edu>
>> wrote:
>> >> > >
>> >> > > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 1:01 AM Matt Turner <mattst88 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> > > > WTF would you have us do?
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Same thing as for any change with an impact this wide --
>> >> > >
>> >> > > 1. Identify stakeholders. In this case, probably the sub-project
>> >> > > maintainers, major contributors, and a smattering of distro
>> >> > > maintainers.
>> >> > > 2. Make them happy, or at least get them, as a group, to agree that
>> >> > > it's "good enough".
>> >> >
>> >> > So we're trying to get better coverage than what you're suggesting.
>> >> >
>> >> > > 3. Apply.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > This is the point at which you can make autotools less visible.
>> We're
>> >> > > not at that point yet.
>> >> >
>> >> > Ilia, it's an extra flag. I think you'll survive.
>> >>
>> >> It's an advertising strategy for meson (hello world, check this out,
>> >> it's going to be the default soon). It can be done at the final stage.
>> >> We're not at that stage.
>> >>
>> >> We're at the stage of "hello community, we'd like to replace
>> >> autotools", and the community coming back to you with feedback.
>> >
>> >
>> > I disagree.  I think we were at that stage 6-8 months ago and a bunch
>> of the community didn't come back with feedback until we sent a patch to
>> delete autotools.  Identify stakeholders?  Done; the distros are all cool
>> with it or have already switched.  Agree it's "good enough"?  We thought
>> we'd done that and then people raised issues at the 11th hour.  Even with
>> those issues, the ones that are real issues with meson are all in-progress
>> to fix.  The others are just "make it look like autotools so I can pretend
>> meson doesn't exist".  Please pardon my frustration but we thought we'd
>> done our due diligence and it wasn't until we took a step very much like
>> this one that we actually got feedback from certain people such as
>> yourself.  To say that we're only now getting to the "hello community, we'd
>> like to replace autotools" stage is a bit disingenuous.
>> >
>> > That said, that doesn't mean I think this patch is the right way to
>> go.  I think the referenced e-mail conversaion has flushed out enough of
>> the remaining issues that we need to fix a couple of remaining things in
>> meson and then just delete autotools.  Maybe this means that autotools
>> stays around for one more release but then I think we should just can it
>> without bothering with the extra deprecation step.
>>
>> First -- I want you (and Dylan, and others who are pushing this) to
>> know that I understand your frustration. Making big changes is a giant
>> pain. Not only is the change itself difficult (aka 80% of the work),
>> but then you have to herd all the cats to make it all happen. And cats
>> don't like to be herded (which is why 20% of the work takes 80% of the
>> time).
>>
>> Second -- you're not just getting to "hello community" -- you've been
>> there for a while. But it's not a signpost to move past (like an
>> announcement might be), it's a stage to complete. The community has to
>> be happy. You're saying the concerns are last-second, but I've been
>> seeing these complaints going on for a while (stuff about saving env
>> vars, inability to see how you configured something, etc). I was
>> expecting these would all be addressed before I had to have another
>> look. And then all of a sudden, "let's drop autotools!" and variants
>> thereof.
>>
>
> I thought I recalled some fairly big "meson is ready; please try it out
> and report issues" e-mails in the past but I'm having trouble finding them
> today.  I do recall you having some complaints early on but, to be honest,
> I don't remember what form those took or how/if they got dealt with.  I
> think one of the failings here is that we really need some sort of a
> check-list of things that need to happen prior to autotools deprecation
> which people can lobby to get things added to.  I think dylan has a
> checklist somewhere but it may not be sufficiently public/obvious such that
> some of your complaints never got logged there.
>
> What do you suggest to solve this communication issue?  If autotools
> survives another release, so be it.  However, I want to get us out of the
> vicious cycle of long e-mail threads and endless debates and on to a model
> where Dylan is working towards something and is able to actually close the
> gap.  The cynic in me says that if the last week's exchanges teach us
> anything, it's that we'll never make the naysayers happy and we're wasting
> our time trying.  I badly don't want that to be true.  However, for my
> internal cynic to be proven wrong, we need a more productive model for how
> we close that gap and agree that it's "good enough."  What do you suggest?
>
>
>> What you've been doing thus far is getting all the yaysayers to be
>> happy (people who are enthusiastic about the change, such as yourself)
>> -- making sure it all basically works, etc. Now you have to get the
>> naysayers to be happy, like me, who are pretty happy with the status
>> quo, and see limited/no benefit in the change. The way you do that is
>> to make the new system no worse than the old one. Given that some
>> people are interested, the naysayers aren't going to just shut it
>> down, but their concerns should be addressed or ruled invalid.
>>
>
> I responded to your e-mail and I agree that a couple of those are real
> problems that need to be sorted and another is something that while I
> personally don't care about, I agree that people find it useful and it'd be
> nice to have.  However, when you're talking about "no worse than the old
> one", what are we supposed to do about the things which aren't actually
> worse but are just different?
>
> --Jason
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