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 <ja...@jlekstrand.net wrote: > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 10:32 AM Ilia Mirkin <imir...@alum.mit.edu> wrote: > >> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 11:03 AM Jason Ekstrand <ja...@jlekstrand.net> >> wrote: >> > >> > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 9:32 AM Ilia Mirkin <imir...@alum.mit.edu> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 10:25 AM Matt Turner <matts...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> > >> >> > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 8:06 AM Ilia Mirkin <imir...@alum.mit.edu> >> wrote: >> >> > > >> >> > > On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 1:01 AM Matt Turner <matts...@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 > _______________________________________________ > mesa-dev mailing list > mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev >
_______________________________________________ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
