[gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

Hello folks,

Introspection has finally been unmasked in the tree![1] This means
that most of the issues with introspection have either been ironed
out, or can be handled.

Note that introspection was already being selectively unmasked on
newer ebuilds using profiles/base/package.use.mask for quite a few
months for this migration. This means that for most ~arch users this
changes almost nothing, except that a ton of packages just got
USE=introspection visible.

For stable users, this changes nothing as well. The old
package.use.mask whitelist of ebuilds has now been converted into a
blacklist consisting of ebuilds that went stable before the whitelist
was created. As those old stable ebuilds get removed due to age, the
blacklist will winnow down and go away completely.

For a list of some of the issues we had (and some minor problems that
we still have) w.r.t. introspection, please see the following bugs:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324989
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=350093
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=365413

A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
should *always* use IUSE="+introspection". The reason for this is that
the .gir and .typelib data that is installed is trivial compared to
the rest of the package, takes just a few secs to generate, and is
necessary for Python, Vala, and (in future) all other bindings. Also,
if we don't do this, enabling USE=introspection on one package will
cause the entire dependency tree all the way down to glib to be
recompiled just for a few small 20KB files.

Cheers!

1. Special thanks to pquery for making it easy for me to generate the
package.use.mask blacklist. Hopefully I haven't made any human errors
while generating the list :S

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 21:23 Tue 16 Aug     , Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
> should *always* use IUSE="+introspection".

Then why is it a flag?

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Council Member / Sr. Developer
Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 12:29 AM, Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 21:23 Tue 16 Aug     , Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
>> should *always* use IUSE="+introspection".
>
> Then why is it a flag?
>

So that people who use, say, json-glib in embedded environments don't
need to pull in a package that is quite unnecessary for them.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Nirbheek Chauhan schrieb:
>>> A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
>>> should *always* use IUSE="+introspection".
>> Then why is it a flag?
>>
> So that people who use, say, json-glib in embedded environments don't
> need to pull in a package that is quite unnecessary for them.
>

Then why don't you make it a default flag in desktop/gnome profile
instead? That way, the embedded users who don't use a desktop profile
won't even need to take action to disable the flag.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyen

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

2011/8/17 Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn <chithanh@gentoo.org>:
> Nirbheek Chauhan schrieb:
>>>> A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
>>>> should *always* use IUSE="+introspection".
>>> Then why is it a flag?
>>>
>> So that people who use, say, json-glib in embedded environments don't
>> need to pull in a package that is quite unnecessary for them.
>>
>
> Then why don't you make it a default flag in desktop/gnome profile
> instead? That way, the embedded users who don't use a desktop profile
> won't even need to take action to disable the flag.
>

We didn't do that because the use-case for not enabling introspection
is a marginal one. We almost didn't even make it a use-flag.

I think it would rather make sense to mask the use-flag in an embedded
profile (small blacklist) than to enable it everywhere else
(effectively a large whitelist).


-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Maciej Mrozowski]

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On Tuesday 16 of August 2011 22:14:28 Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> 2011/8/17 Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn <chithanh@gentoo.org>:
> > Nirbheek Chauhan schrieb:
> >>>> A side-note that we've wanted to get out to all devs is that everyone
> >>>> should *always* use IUSE="+introspection".
> >>> 
> >>> Then why is it a flag?
> >> 
> >> So that people who use, say, json-glib in embedded environments don't
> >> need to pull in a package that is quite unnecessary for them.
> > 
> > Then why don't you make it a default flag in desktop/gnome profile
> > instead? That way, the embedded users who don't use a desktop profile
> > won't even need to take action to disable the flag.
> 
> We didn't do that because the use-case for not enabling introspection
> is a marginal one.

Ah, use case like KDE, we get it, Nirbheek :D
As soon as it can be globally disabled (with a loss of functionality and 
packages availability) I won't complain.

-- 
regards
MM

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Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 3:27 AM, Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 of August 2011 22:14:28 Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> 2011/8/17 Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn <chithanh@gentoo.org>:
>> > Then why don't you make it a default flag in desktop/gnome profile
>> > instead? That way, the embedded users who don't use a desktop profile
>> > won't even need to take action to disable the flag.
>>
>> We didn't do that because the use-case for not enabling introspection
>> is a marginal one.
>
> Ah, use case like KDE, we get it, Nirbheek :D
> As soon as it can be globally disabled (with a loss of functionality and
> packages availability) I won't complain.
>

Anyone who installs gobject libraries, and wants to use language
bindings with them will want introspection. This means
python/vala/javascript for now, and *all* languages in the long run.
If you use KDE, you simply won't install the various gobject
libraries.

The use-case for disabling introspection globally is if you will never
use any gobject language bindings for the next 4-5 years.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Jeremy Olexa]

On 08/16/2011 06:07 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> The use-case for disabling introspection globally is if you will never
> use any gobject language bindings for the next 4-5 years.

FYI: I disabled it globally, already, on my server. As the rrdtool stack 
pulls in pango with the +introspection default. Useless to me, and my 
host. No problems since June 24 2011. (I thought it was already unmasked 
since I discovered it enabled back then)

% grep intro /etc/portage/make.conf
USE="${USE} -python -perl -introspection" # questionable defaults

=D

Take care,
-Jeremy

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Jeremy Olexa schrieb:
> On 08/16/2011 06:07 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> The use-case for disabling introspection globally is if you will never
>> use any gobject language bindings for the next 4-5 years.
> 
> FYI: I disabled it globally, already, on my server. As the rrdtool stack
> pulls in pango with the +introspection default. Useless to me, and my
> host. No problems since June 24 2011. (I thought it was already unmasked
> since I discovered it enabled back then)

Sounds to me like profile defaults are more appropriate than IUSE
defaults in this case.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[William Hubbs]

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On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 02:03:43AM +0200, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> Jeremy Olexa schrieb:
> > On 08/16/2011 06:07 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> >> The use-case for disabling introspection globally is if you will never
> >> use any gobject language bindings for the next 4-5 years.
> > 
> > FYI: I disabled it globally, already, on my server. As the rrdtool stack
> > pulls in pango with the +introspection default. Useless to me, and my
> > host. No problems since June 24 2011. (I thought it was already unmasked
> > since I discovered it enabled back then)
> 
> Sounds to me like profile defaults are more appropriate than IUSE
> defaults in this case.

I tend to agree. I would rather see profile defaults here instead of
IUSE forcing on introspection at the package level.

Remember that udev supports introspection, so if I put
IUSE="+introspection" in the udev ebuild, every system that has udev
will have introspection turned on by default unless users disable it.

Also, I see that dev-libs/glib wwants to force introspection onto my
system. I do not use gnome, so I don't know why I need introspection.

Nirbheek/gnome team: Please reconsider this and consider making
introspection a profile default instead.

Thanks,

William

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Re: [gentoo-dev] USE=introspection has been unmasked in the tree

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:04 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 02:03:43AM +0200, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> I tend to agree. I would rather see profile defaults here instead of
> IUSE forcing on introspection at the package level.
>
> Remember that udev supports introspection, so if I put
> IUSE="+introspection" in the udev ebuild, every system that has udev
> will have introspection turned on by default unless users disable it.
>

That's for gudev, right? Anyway, I think system packages probably
don't need to enable this by default. All other gobject-based
libraries should, though.

> Also, I see that dev-libs/glib wwants to force introspection onto my
> system. I do not use gnome, so I don't know why I need introspection.
>

I added that use-flag because we were going to build and ship the glib
typelibs and girs with glib because of this:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324989#c6

But since we haven't done that, I've masked the use-flag till it
doesn't do something as useless as simply pulling in
gobject-introspection.

> Nirbheek/gnome team: Please reconsider this and consider making
> introspection a profile default instead.
>

I'm open to this, but I'll have to talk to the rest of the GNOME team
before we decide.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team