[LLVMdev] Top Level Stuff

[Tanya M. Lattner]

> The current SVN repository has several modules at the top level (llvm,
> test-suite, java, stacker, etc.). The modules contain the software that
> makes up the LLVM Project. However, there is nothing at the top level
> that explains any of this. So, I am considering doing the following at
> the top level of the repository (i.e. in
> http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project):
>
> 1. /README.html
> Just a short README file in HTML format so that people browsing into the
> repository can get the lay of the land. This would indicate what the
> LLVM Project is, what its modules are, where you can find the main
> website, documentation for each module, etc.

This should probably be txt.

> 2. /website/
> I think the LLVM web site (hosted at http://llvm.org/) should be a
> subversion module named website. It should not contain the releases
> (huge files) and should be converted from the original llvm-www CVS
> module. Additionally, we should set httpd up so that it rewrites any /
> request to /svn/llvm-project/website. This will allow subversion to
> auto-update the web site without us having to do a checkout

I don't think this is a good idea. I think it should be labeled 
llvm-website because it is more clear what website a person has checked 
out.

> 3. /docs/
> Right now the /docs/ url is mapped to /svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk/docs/
> which is okay temporarily, but I'd like to see /docs/ become a
> subversion module that provides documentation for the project at the
> meta-level. When llvm-gcc, hlvm and the new C front end all hit the
> repository there will be a need for some documentation about things that
> are common across all modules and about the project as a whole. Right
> now these are handled either by the web site or by the llvm module.

I don't think we should have a docs module. Its much better to allow a 
person to check out only llvm and get the appropriate documentation. Same 
for hlvm, and whatever project. Its very inconvenient to check out 
multiple things just to get llvm and docs.

> 4. /utils/ (or perhaps /tools/)
> I think there's an opportunity for us to put some common tools that are
> used by several modules into a top level module named /utils/. Initially
> this could be a merge of the hlvm and llvm module /utils/ directory
> (excluding things like tblgen which is llvm specific).

What tools are common? This is another thing someone has to check out.

> 4. "projects"
> I don't think its appropriate for the llvm/trunk/projects directory to
> be the place where a "project" is checked out. In fact, I'm not sure the
> notion of "project" even makes sense any more. I would prefer that we
> just have a set of modules at the top level and those modules have some
> inter-dependencies. For example, you should be able to just check out
> the "test-suite" module at the top level and run it. I think the primary
> motivation for having it in the llvm/projects directory was so that such
> projects could auto-configure when LLVM was configured. For newcomers
> this is unusual and for llvm developers its a maintenance burden. If a
> project depends on another project, it should just use the normal
> configure mechanism (e.g. --with-llvm=/path/to/llvm). We could provide
> some tools in /utils/ to make this easier.  Furthermore, not having to
> support "projects" in the makefile system will make the makefiles much
> easier to understand and will make the conversion to scons easier.

This seems fine as long as its really easy to configure things like 
llvm-test. If its more difficult then its now, then its not worth it.

-Tanya