Why are we still debating build tooling? I think you’re wrong, but I’ve conceded - on the assumption that we can get enough volunteers willing to adopt responsibility for the new world order.
I suggest five long term contributors nominate themselves as the build file maintainers, and collectively manage a safe and painless migration for the rest of us - and agree to maintain and develop the new build file going forwards, and support the community as they adopt it. On the topic of over-exuberant linting I will continue to push back. I think linting our brace rules could make sense since they are atypical, but more formatting rules than this likely just leads to atrophying style. Authorship involves thinking about how to present your code; I don’t want to either encourage lazy authorship or prevent experimentation with presentation. Both would be bad, and I expect we would struggle to evolve our style guide again in future as the language evolves. Our brace rules are a good example everyone unilaterally ignored when lambdas arrived, as we all recognised they materially harmed the brevity benefits, and we eventually codified this. On migration: auto formatters applied to code that was not written with the rules in mind will almost unerringly be made a mess of, so having a tool do this is not acceptable IMO. The idea of checkstyle being the source of truth continues to be untenable and anyone still pushing for this should please engage with my earlier points on this. > On 30 Nov 2022, at 04:06, Patrick McFadin <pmcfa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I'm going to +1 what Stefan has said. I've heard on many occasions from > newcomers to the project that having to use Ant is a deterrent. As a matter > of fact, a few weeks ago, I spent a Sunday afternoon helping somebody trying > to build Cassandra and Ant caused a ton of problems. "Ok. ant really super > clean this time" > > Sure it still works for people that have been doing this for years. I drive a > 20 year old Toyota truck, but I'm reminded by my kids often that it's not > cool. So in that spirit, I feel my saying we need to keep Ant is like saying > "You kids get off my lawn!" If it's something that will help attract new > contributors, I'm all for it. > > Patrick > >> On Fri, Nov 25, 2022 at 2:22 AM Miklosovic, Stefan >> <stefan.mikloso...@netapp.com> wrote: >> I agree with what you wrote. How I understand it is that migrating to >> Maven/Gradle makes the project more "attractive" for newcomers. If a project >> is built on "that old un-cool Ant", it might be a little bit off-putting and >> questionable if we are "stuck in the past on build systems and not >> progressing". >> >> So in that sense I agree this is more "marketing" rather than technological >> question but on the other hand, does not Maven/Gradle allow us to modularize >> the project better? Maybe we would like to modularize but nobody is up to >> that because build system makes it impossible or at least quite inconvenient >> to do so. Do you really think there are not any significant benefits to >> switch even if it "just works" now? >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: Benedict <bened...@apache.org> >> Sent: Friday, November 25, 2022 11:07 >> To: dev@cassandra.apache.org >> Subject: Re: [DISCUSSION] Cassandra's code style and source code analysis >> >> NetApp Security WARNING: This is an external email. Do not click links or >> open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is >> safe. >> >> >> >> >> There’s always a handful of people asking for it, but notably few if any of >> the full time contributors doing the majority of the core development of >> Cassandra. It strikes me as something very appealing to others, but less so >> to those wanting to get on with development. >> >> I never really see a good argument articulated for the migration, besides >> general hand waving that ant is old, and people like newer build systems. >> Ant is working fine, so there isn’t a strong technical reason to replace it, >> and there are good organisational reasons not to. >> >> Why do you consider a migration inevitable? >> >> >> >> > On 25 Nov 2022, at 09:58, Miklosovic, Stefan >> > <stefan.mikloso...@netapp.com> wrote: >> > >> > Interesting take on Ant / no-Ant, Benedict. I am very curious how this >> > unfolds. My long-term perception is that changing it to something else is >> > more or less inevitable but if there is a broader consensus to not do that >> > .... well. >> > >> > ________________________________________ >> > From: Benedict <bened...@apache.org> >> > Sent: Friday, November 25, 2022 10:52 >> > To: dev@cassandra.apache.org >> > Subject: Re: [DISCUSSION] Cassandra's code style and source code analysis >> > >> > NetApp Security WARNING: This is an external email. Do not click links or >> > open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is >> > safe. >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > I was in a bit of a rush last night. I should say that I’m of course +1 a >> > general endeavour to clean this up, and to expand our use of linters, and >> > I appreciate your volunteering to help out in this way Maxim. >> > >> > However, responding to Stefan, I’m pretty -1 migrating from ant to another >> > build system without really good reason. Migration has a real cost to >> > productivity for all existing contributors, and the phantom of increasing >> > new contributions has never paid off historically. I’m all for easing >> > people into participation, but not at penalty to the existing contributor >> > base. >> > >> > If the only reason is to make it easier to open in a different IDE, we can >> > perhaps have some basic build files outlining code structure for >> > importing, that are compatible with our canonical ant build? We could >> > perhaps even generate them. >> > >> > >> >> On 25 Nov 2022, at 09:35, Miklosovic, Stefan >> >> <stefan.mikloso...@netapp.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> For the record, I was testing that same combo Claude mentioned and it >> >> did not work out of the box but it is definitely possible to set up >> >> successfully. I do not remember the details. >> >> >> >> To replay to Maxim, it all seems good to me, roughly, but I humbly think >> >> it all boils down to Maven/Gradle refactoring and on top of that we can >> >> do all else. >> >> >> >> For example, there is (1) where the solution, besides fixing the tests, >> >> is to introduce an Ant task which would check this on build. That being >> >> said, how is that going to look like when we change Ant for something >> >> else? That stuff suddenly becomes obsolete. >> >> >> >> This case maybe applies to other problems we want to solve as well. I do >> >> not want to do something tailored for one build system just to rewrite it >> >> all or to spend significant amount of time on that again when we switch >> >> the build system. >> >> >> >> For that reason I think changing Ant for something else should be top >> >> priority (as I understand that it the hot topic for community for very >> >> long time) and then everything else should follow. We should spend time >> >> on things mentioned only in case they do not collide with any build >> >> system at all. >> >> >> >> (1) https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-17964 >> >> >> >> Stefan >> >> >> >> ________________________________________ >> >> From: Claude Warren, Jr via dev <dev@cassandra.apache.org> >> >> Sent: Friday, November 25, 2022 10:16 >> >> To: dev@cassandra.apache.org >> >> Subject: Re: [DISCUSSION] Cassandra's code style and source code analysis >> >> >> >> NetApp Security WARNING: This is an external email. Do not click links or >> >> open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is >> >> safe. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> +1 for the concept as a whole. I am certain I could find nits to pick if >> >> I looked deeply. >> >> >> >> @mck -- I did have a problem with Cassandra + Eclipse + Java11 >> >> (Classpath). I gave up and am spending time trying to learn IntelliJ. I >> >> also mentioned it in one of the discussion areas. >> >> >> >> Claude >> >> >> >> On Thu, Nov 24, 2022 at 8:55 PM Mick Semb Wever >> >> <m...@apache.org<mailto:m...@apache.org>> wrote: >> >> Thank you for a solid write up Maxim. And welcome to Cassandra, it's >> >> very positive to see you here. >> >> >> >> I whole-heartedly agree with nearly everything you write. Some input >> >> and questions inline. >> >> >> >> >> >>> >> >>> As you may know, the infrastructure team has disabled public sign-up >> >>> to ASF JIRA (the GitHub issues are recommended instead). >> >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> I suspect (based on chatter in general, but not on dev@ AFAIK) is to >> >> avoid GH issues and stick with jira. The sign-up hurdle we will >> >> document on the website: CASSANDRA-18064 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> == 1. Make the checkstyle config a single point of truth for the >> >>> source code style. == >> >>> >> >>> The checkstyle is already used and included in the Cassandra project >> >>> build lifecycle (ant command line, Jenkins, CircleCI). There is no >> >>> need to maintain code style configurations for different types of IDEs >> >>> (e.g. IntelliJ inspections configuration) since the checkstyle.xml >> >>> file can be directly imported to IDE used by a developer. This is fair >> >>> for Intellij Idea, NetBeans, and Eclipse. >> >> >> >> >> >> Big +1 >> >> >> >> >> >>> So, I propose to focus on the checks themselves and checking pull >> >>> requests with automation scripts, rather than maintaining these >> >>> integrations. The benefits here are avoiding all issues with >> >>> maintaining configurations for different IDEs. Another good advantage >> >>> of this approach would be the ability to add new checkstyle rules >> >>> without touching IDE configuration - and such tickets will be LFH and >> >>> easy to commit. >> >>> >> >>> The actions points here are: >> >>> >> >>> - create an umbrella JIRA ticket for all checkstyle issues e.g. [8] >> >>> (or label checkstyle); >> >>> - add checkstyle to GitHub pull requests using GitHub actions (execute >> >>> ant command); >> >> >> >> >> >> Instead of custom GHA scripting, please use our existing >> >> cassandra-artifact.sh (which should already include all such checks). >> >> >> >> Something like >> >> https://github.com/apache/cassandra/compare/cassandra-3.11...thelastpickle:cassandra:mck/github-actions/3.11 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> == 3. Enable pushing backwards build results for both Jenkins and >> >>> CircleCI to GitHub pull requests. == >> >>> >> >>> The goal here is to have a "green checkbox" for those GitHub pull >> >>> requests that have corresponding Jenkins/CircleCI runs. According to >> >>> the following links, it is completely possible to have those. >> >>> >> >>> https://github.com/jenkinsci/github-branch-source-plugin >> >>> https://circleci.com/docs/enable-checks/ >> >>> >> >>> Moreover, the GitHub Branch Source Plugin is already enabled for the >> >>> Cassandra project [16]. The same seems should work the same way for >> >>> CirleCI, but I have faced the infrastructure team comment [17] that >> >>> describes admin permissions are required for that, so the question is >> >>> still open here. I could dig a bit more once we've agreed on it. >> >>> >> >>> The actions points here are: >> >>> - enable Jenkins integration for GitHub pull requests; >> >>> - enable CircleCI integration for GitHub pull requests; >> >> >> >> >> >> Some folk use CircleCI, some use ci-cassandra. The green checkbox idea >> >> is great, so long as it's optional. We don't want PRs triggering the >> >> runs either (there are other mechanisms for triggering for now). >> >> >> >> >> >>> The actions points here are: >> >>> >> >>> - initiate a wide survey for user and dev lists, to get to know about >> >>> the usages; >> >>> - remove those configurations that are not used anymore; >> >>> - force migration from Ant to Gradle/Maven; >> >> >> >> >> >> Let's leave this out for now. There's too many unknowns here. If >> >> there's an IDE configuration that's broken, no one has reported it for >> >> ages, and no one is around to fix it, then I say we should raise the >> >> discussion to remove it. >> >> >> >> The Gradle/Maven migration is a hot one, contribute to that discussion >> >> but let's not tangle this work up with it, IMHO. >> >> >> >> Totally agree that IDE project files should be as light weight as >> >> possible. >> >> >> >> >> >>> Summarizing everything proposed above I think it is possible to >> >>> simplify adding small contributions easier to the codebase as well as >> >>> save a bunch of committer's time. >> >>> >> >>> So, >> >>> WDYT about the things described above? >> >>> Should I create a CEP for this? >> >> >> >> >> >> I see no need for a CEP here. An epic and tickets will work. >> >> Again, thanks for the input Maxim! >>
