[Scons-dev] The Contrib Repository. [was Adding support for Visual Studio Code workspace generation]

[Andrew Featherstone]

On 28/11/16 21:09, Dirk Bächle wrote:
> Hi,
>
> here are my 2c... ;)
>
> On 28.11.2016 10:36, Russel Winder wrote:
>> On Sun, 2016-11-27 at 12:42 -0800, Bill Deegan wrote:
>>> Andrew,
>>>
>>> If it's interesting to you, go ahead and work on it!
>>> There's an index of community supported builders in the wiki. Feel
>>> free to
>>> add your work there (https://bitbucket.org/scons/scons/wiki/ToolsInde
>>> x).
>>> Or if you like add it to here: https://bitbucket.org/scons/scons-cont
>>> rib
>>>
>>
>> This raises the issue of whether we should be thinking about active
>> curation of the Contrib repository, and how to manage it.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> So this raises a number of issues.
>>
>> 1. What is the purpose, aim, and goal of the Contrib repository?
>
> To collect Tools, Config and other snippets...as contributed by users.
>
>> 2. Is it intended as the place where things will be migrated out of the
>> SCons core distribution?
>
> No...in the sense that I don't know of any plans to migrate current 
> core tools. It will be more like the place where Tools get ready to be 
> migrated "into" the core, once they have proper tests and 
> documentation. A replacement for all the Wiki snippets and, where the 
> current maintainers want this, all the single ToolsIndex repos...
>
>> 3. Should it deploy into the running SCons installation or to a
>> site_scons/site_tools?
>
> Neither...my idea is that it installs "parallel" to an SCons distro, 
> while SCons' Python search path is patched such that all modules in 
> "scons-contrib" get found as if they would lie directly in the "scons" 
> folder.
> This might imply that "scons" and "scons-contrib" get released 
> simultaneously, maybe even with the same version number...not sure 
> about that yet, there definitely has to follow some discussion about 
> this.
>
>> 4. Is it just for tools?
>
> No...anything that is useful and could be good to have for importing 
> it into an SConstruct/SConscript is allowed and encouraged.
>
>> 5. Should SCons support not-tool add-ins better?
>
> I think that being able to directly import add-ins from the "contrib" 
> repo without any further ado would qualify here, right? ;)
>
>> 6. What is the process for adding things to Contrib?
>
> Creating a pull request.
>
>> 7. What is the mechanism for removing things from Contrib?
>
> ditto ;)
>
>> 8. Is it feasible to move the C, C++, Fortran, D stuff out of the core
>> without a total rewrite of the core?
>
> Have we decided to do such a thing...and when exactly did that happen?
>
>> 9. Is anyone thinking about how to do C++ builds with SCons in the
>> presence of package managers such as Conan.
>>
>> In a sense I feel a bit of a fraud contributing here just now. Apart
>> from LaTeX builds, and a few small pet projects, I am hardly using
>> SCons just now.
>
> Which makes your insights and opinions even more valuable, to me at 
> least. :) Conan is a good example, never heard of it...until now. Good 
> to have someone affiliated with the project who is able to track all 
> the "rest of the Internet" for interesting tools and technologies. 
> Please don't stop prodding us. :)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dirk
>
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My plan was simply to put something alongside the existing tools in 
src/engine/SCons/Tool/ . "community supported" is a bit of an odd thing 
to me. Just developing in one place would be much simpler and feels a 
lot more "community" rather than "Go in play in the sandbox, we might 
integrate your work if you meet an undisclosed criteria.".