[gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Marijn]

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Dear all,

I was just looking into the meaning of the introspection use-flag and
there are many ebuilds that use it so perhaps it should be globalized,
which would also give us a chance to improve the naming/description.
Current descriptions are:

Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
Enable GObject introspection.

Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
people in the know could shed some light on this issue?

Thanks,

Marijn
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Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Gilles Dartiguelongue]

Le vendredi 06 mai 2011 à 10:40 +0200, Marijn a écrit :
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> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I was just looking into the meaning of the introspection use-flag and
> there are many ebuilds that use it so perhaps it should be globalized,
> which would also give us a chance to improve the naming/description.
> Current descriptions are:
> 
> Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
> Enable GObject introspection.
> 
> Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
> flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
> even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
> will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
> people in the know could shed some light on this issue?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Marijn

See original thread on this mailing list:

From: 		Arun Raghavan <ford_prefect@gentoo.org>
Subject: 	[gentoo-dev] New global USE flag: introspection
Date: 		Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:12:58 +0530 (20/06/2010 16:42:58)
Message-ID:
<AANLkTimjJIGW6k5vQCX-wryeYy_FPUTQpRN7jmW4xRKN@mail.gmail.com>

-- 
Gilles Dartiguelongue <eva@gentoo.org>
Gentoo

Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Marijn]

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On 05/06/11 14:25, Gilles Dartiguelongue wrote:
> Le vendredi 06 mai 2011 à 10:40 +0200, Marijn a écrit :
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I was just looking into the meaning of the introspection use-flag and
>> there are many ebuilds that use it so perhaps it should be globalized,
>> which would also give us a chance to improve the naming/description.
>> Current descriptions are:
>>
>> Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
>> Enable GObject introspection.
>>
>> Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
>> flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
>> even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
>> will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
>> people in the know could shed some light on this issue?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Marijn
> 
> See original thread on this mailing list:
> 
> From: 		Arun Raghavan <ford_prefect@gentoo.org>
> Subject: 	[gentoo-dev] New global USE flag: introspection
> Date: 		Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:12:58 +0530 (20/06/2010 16:42:58)
> Message-ID:
> <AANLkTimjJIGW6k5vQCX-wryeYy_FPUTQpRN7jmW4xRKN@mail.gmail.com>
> 

Thanks for the pointer![1] Having just read that discussion it seems
that even back then many developers found that the name "introspection"
is too broad/imprecise. Several alternatives were proposed, like
gintrospection, gobject-introspection, gir, api-introspection. I think
any of these would have been better than the current name.

And what happened to the proposed description:

introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
dynamic generation of bindings for various languages

which at least contains a hint of what the purpose is of this flag? But
maybe someone can do even better than that now that this technology has
been in use for a while?

Marijn

[1]:http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=127704501818312&w=2
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Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Gilles Dartiguelongue]

Le vendredi 06 mai 2011 à 15:18 +0200, Marijn a écrit :
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> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On 05/06/11 14:25, Gilles Dartiguelongue wrote:
> > Le vendredi 06 mai 2011 à 10:40 +0200, Marijn a écrit :
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: SHA1
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> I was just looking into the meaning of the introspection use-flag and
> >> there are many ebuilds that use it so perhaps it should be globalized,
> >> which would also give us a chance to improve the naming/description.
> >> Current descriptions are:
> >>
> >> Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
> >> Enable GObject introspection.
> >>
> >> Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
> >> flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
> >> even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
> >> will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
> >> people in the know could shed some light on this issue?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Marijn
> > 
> > See original thread on this mailing list:
> > 
> > From: 		Arun Raghavan <ford_prefect@gentoo.org>
> > Subject: 	[gentoo-dev] New global USE flag: introspection
> > Date: 		Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:12:58 +0530 (20/06/2010 16:42:58)
> > Message-ID:
> > <AANLkTimjJIGW6k5vQCX-wryeYy_FPUTQpRN7jmW4xRKN@mail.gmail.com>
> > 
> 
> Thanks for the pointer![1] Having just read that discussion it seems
> that even back then many developers found that the name "introspection"
> is too broad/imprecise. Several alternatives were proposed, like
> gintrospection, gobject-introspection, gir, api-introspection. I think
> any of these would have been better than the current name.

The gnome team agreed to disagree. There is no point in renaming a flag
that is widely used across gnome packages for a single common purpose
and not anywhere else in the tree.

All alternatives are based on a what-if but months later, what-ifs are
still nowhere to be found.

> And what happened to the proposed description:
> 
> introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
> dynamic generation of bindings for various languages
> 
> which at least contains a hint of what the purpose is of this flag? But
> maybe someone can do even better than that now that this technology has
> been in use for a while?

That can be applied, it would of course be easier to manage if the flag
was global.

-- 
Gilles Dartiguelongue <eva@gentoo.org>
Gentoo

Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Maciej Mrozowski]

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On Friday 06 of May 2011 15:18:20 Marijn wrote:
> On 05/06/11 14:25, Gilles Dartiguelongue wrote:
> > Le vendredi 06 mai 2011 à 10:40 +0200, Marijn a écrit :
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: SHA1
> >> 
> >> Dear all,
> >> 
> >> I was just looking into the meaning of the introspection use-flag and
> >> there are many ebuilds that use it so perhaps it should be globalized,
> >> which would also give us a chance to improve the naming/description.
> >> Current descriptions are:
> >> 
> >> Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
> >> Enable GObject introspection.
> >> 
> >> Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
> >> flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
> >> even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
> >> will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
> >> people in the know could shed some light on this issue?
> >> 
> >> Thanks,
> >> 
> >> Marijn
> > 
> > See original thread on this mailing list:
> > 
> > From: 		Arun Raghavan <ford_prefect@gentoo.org>
> > Subject: 	[gentoo-dev] New global USE flag: introspection
> > Date: 		Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:12:58 +0530 (20/06/2010 16:42:58)
> > Message-ID:
> > <AANLkTimjJIGW6k5vQCX-wryeYy_FPUTQpRN7jmW4xRKN@mail.gmail.com>
> 
> Thanks for the pointer![1] Having just read that discussion it seems
> that even back then many developers found that the name "introspection"
> is too broad/imprecise. Several alternatives were proposed, like
> gintrospection, gobject-introspection, gir, api-introspection. I think
> any of these would have been better than the current name.
> 
> And what happened to the proposed description:
> 
> introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
> dynamic generation of bindings for various languages

No.

http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg40069.html

> which at least contains a hint of what the purpose is of this flag? But
> maybe someone can do even better than that now that this technology has
> been in use for a while?
> 
> Marijn
> 
> [1]:http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=127704501818312&w=2

-- 
regards
MM

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Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday 06 of May 2011 15:18:20 Marijn wrote:
>> And what happened to the proposed description:
>>
>> introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
>> dynamic generation of bindings for various languages
>
> No.
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg40069.html
>

It's things like this that convinced us that there's no real advantage
in having it as a global use-flag. Maybe 3 years later when there is
*still* nothing else in the tree that uses "introspection" besides
gobject-introspection, we'll revisit this and finally make it a global
use-flag.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Maciej Mrozowski]

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On Saturday 07 of May 2011 01:18:57 Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > On Friday 06 of May 2011 15:18:20 Marijn wrote:
> >> And what happened to the proposed description:
> >> 
> >> introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
> >> dynamic generation of bindings for various languages
> > 
> > No.
> > 
> > http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg40069.html
> 
> It's things like this that convinced us that there's no real advantage
> in having it as a global use-flag. Maybe 3 years later when there is
> *still* nothing else in the tree that uses "introspection" besides
> gobject-introspection, we'll revisit this and finally make it a global
> use-flag.

Nirbheek... and what's particularly wrong with 'introspection' global USE flag 
having implementation-agnostic "Enable runtime API introspection" description?

Nobody sees anything wrong with overly vague 'xml' global USE flag and my 
proposition isn't worse ('Add support for XML files' ... you mean what 
support? import/export or just expat vs libxml2?)

-- 
regards
MM

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[gentoo-dev] Re: introspection use flag

[Duncan]

Maciej Mrozowski posted on Sun, 08 May 2011 22:48:39 +0200 as excerpted:

> Nirbheek... and what's particularly wrong with 'introspection' global
> USE flag having implementation-agnostic "Enable runtime API
> introspection" description?
> 
> Nobody sees anything wrong with overly vague 'xml' global USE flag and
> my proposition isn't worse ('Add support for XML files' ... you mean
> what support? import/export or just expat vs libxml2?)

FWIW, I believe it's more a case of "what's done is done, and it's more 
hassle than anybody's been willing to take to fix it now" in the case of 
USE=xml, than not seeing anything wrong with it.  But just because there's 
already such examples in wide use in the tree doesn't mean we need or want 
more of them!

Certainly that's my feeling as a Gentoo sysadmin trying to make sense of 
such flags and how they affect various packages, especially when a bug 
ends up being USE-flag dependent and I need to know whether I actually 
need that functionality or not.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 2:18 AM, Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 07 of May 2011 01:18:57 Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> > On Friday 06 of May 2011 15:18:20 Marijn wrote:
>> >> And what happened to the proposed description:
>> >>
>> >> introspection: Add gobject-introspection support, allowing for the
>> >> dynamic generation of bindings for various languages
>> >
>> > No.
>> >
>> > http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg40069.html
>>
>> It's things like this that convinced us that there's no real advantage
>> in having it as a global use-flag. Maybe 3 years later when there is
>> *still* nothing else in the tree that uses "introspection" besides
>> gobject-introspection, we'll revisit this and finally make it a global
>> use-flag.
>
> Nirbheek... and what's particularly wrong with 'introspection' global USE flag
> having implementation-agnostic "Enable runtime API introspection" description?
>

The reasoning I had in mind was as follows:

* I prefer use-flag descriptions to give the required information to
the user as far as possible in one sentence (or two if necessary).
* metadata.xml must be used for this if the global use-flag
description is too generic.

Following these two, it would mean that the global USE-flag
description you are proposing would be too generic, and would require
local use-flag descriptions for all the current uses of
USE=introspection in the tree. This would not change the status quo.

This will of course change if/when some other tool comes up which does
a similar job, and is toggleable in a similar way. One of our
proposals (back then) was that we add the specific description now,
and switch over to the generic one when that situation comes to be.
However, that was rejected, and we ended up going with the local
use-flag descriptions.

At this point, adding a global use-flag with that generic description
would only mean that some packages (whose maintainers are a bit lazy)
will have inconsistent use-flag descriptions, which will cause
confusion to users.

So, I see no point adding a generic global use-flag description right
now. It can either be added when another such tool comes up, or the
current description can be made global when it looks like
gobject-introspection will be the only such tool.


PS: Apologies if I sounded harsh in my earlier mail. I felt like I was
reliving the old discussion, and it sort of heated me up.

> Nobody sees anything wrong with overly vague 'xml' global USE flag and my
> proposition isn't worse ('Add support for XML files' ... you mean what
> support? import/export or just expat vs libxml2?)
>
> --
> regards
> MM
>



-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] introspection use flag

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Marijn <hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Current descriptions are:
>
> Use dev-libs/gobject-introspection for introspection
> Enable GObject introspection.
>
> Currently it is hard to tell which functionality is enabled through this
> flag and the meaning of the descriptions for when the flag is off are
> even more unclear. Does it mean that introspection will not be used or
> will some other way of introspection be used? Either way, perhaps the
> people in the know could shed some light on this issue?
>

All uses of this USE-flag are identical, and mean that Introspection
girs and typelibs will be built using gobject-introspection for usage
with bindings, etc. If the use-flag is off, this data is not built.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team