[llvm-dev] Contributing Bazel BUILD files similar to gn

[Krzysztof Parzyszek via llvm-dev]

On the grounds that it was a bad idea after all.

Any commits going into the LLVM repository should not break any part of it, at least not without a consideration for a fix.  There is an exception to it---experimental targets.  They can be broken, but they are there with the explicit intent of becoming officially supported.

Same thing applies to the cmake files.  If they get broken, they need to be fixed, but the same doesn’t apply to the extraneous build systems.  They can be broken and never fixed.  There is no commitment from the community as a whole to keep them working.  IMO, this isn’t right, and files like that should not be a part of the official repository.

Whether GN or Bazel have superior features is irrelevant.  Unless their configuration files are a part of a longer-term transition process, they don’t belong in the repo.


--
Krzysztof Parzyszek  kparzysz at quicinc.com<mailto:kparzysz at quicinc.com>   AI tools development

From: llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> On Behalf Of Zachary Turner via llvm-dev
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 6:11 PM
To: Renato Golin <rengolin at gmail.com>
Cc: Mehdi Amini <aminim at google.com>; LLVM Dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>; Stella Laurenzo <laurenzo at google.com>; Tres Popp <tpopp at google.com>; Geoffrey Martin-Noble <gcmn at google.com>; Thomas Joerg <tjoerg at google.com>
Subject: [EXT] Re: [llvm-dev] Contributing Bazel BUILD files similar to gn



On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:49 PM Renato Golin via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2020 at 19:16, David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com<mailto:dblaikie at gmail.com>> wrote:
I /believe/ the idea is that, like gn, there are folks maintaining these build systems out of tree anyway - and having them in tree makes it easier to coordinate that effort, with the express intent of not burdening the general community with their upkeep (like gn currently - the idea is that there's no burden on developers to update gn build files (& consequently bazel build files)).

Perhaps the initial assumption about my concerns weren't well articulated.

I get that those files would be "additional" and other developers won't need to care much about them.

But what happens when people join the project with experience in Bazel and, instead of building pure LLVM with CMake, they start using Bazel for everything, just because they're used to it?

Didn't the community already go through this exact discussion when gn was added?  Let me ask a different question.  If gn support was permitted, on what grounds should we refuse a different parallel build system?  Either we should allow people to contribute build systems upstream that they wish to maintain, or we should keep every buidl system other than CMake out of the tree.
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