[LLVMdev] Getting Started

[Sean Silva]

Hi Joe, thanks for working on this.

My honest opinion on it is that time would be better spent improving
the documentation, as the current documentation is archaic. I think
this has come up on the list before, but to rehash:

* Start out by saying "LLVM can be built with make or CMake, and
checked out with svn or git", and have "make", "CMake", "svn", and
"git" be links to their own section talking about the relevant thing.

* Treat the different options on equal footing. The current document
is extremely SVN/make centric.

Overall, I think that adding automation to this is not really going to
help that much for a newcomer (especially considering the portability
concerns cited by others). TBH, it's not that difficult to set up.
What *is* difficult is wading through the current documentation to
find out that "oh hey, they support git", or "oh, they have CMake so I
can develop in visual studio like I'm comfortable with".

Also, as I'm sure you have witnessed on the lists, choice of build
system and (local) version control is something that people are quite
vehement about, to the point that failing to put those options in
newcomers' faces could result in outright *losing a developer* or at
least dampening their enthusiasm (the importance of which is not to be
underestimated). I have yet to see anyone complain about a lack of
automation for getting set up.

-- Sean Silva

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Joe Abbey <jabbey at arxan.com> wrote:
> I know this process is well documented here
> http://llvm.org/docs/GettingStarted.html
>
> But man do I love scripting things:
>
> LLVM Getting Started (See http://llvm.org/docs/GettingStarted.html)
> ./getttingStarted.sh [-clang] [-compiler-rt] [-test-suite] [-branch branch]
>  [-dir path] [-r rev]
>
> By default this script checks out ToT LLVM to the current working directory
>
> Project Options:
>   -clang                 Checkout Clang repo
>   -compiler-rt           Checkout Compiler RT
>   -test-suite            Checkout LLVM test-suite
>
> Configuration Options:
>   -branch branch         Checkout a specific branch, default trunk
>   -dir path              Checkout to path instead of current working dir
>   -r rev                 Checkout to a specific revision
>   -v                     Verbose mode
>
>   -help                  Print this message
>
> The shell script is attached, if you are interested.  Perhaps we can add
> this to the GettingStarted doc?
>
> Joe
>