[ros-dev] Notice Of Intent - Visual Studio Build of ReactOS

[Aleksey Bragin]

I will quote the valuable parts of the chat for those who missed it:

Answering the question of "How?"
[02:41] <+BlackRabbit> 1. Take the entire tree
[02:41] <+BlackRabbit> 2. Build projects that follow the tree exactly, 
using directory names, according to the tree.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> So, for example, calc would have a VS project 
file in it's directory.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> That's trivial, and would take  about 2-3 hours.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> Then, there are the CPU's.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> I would make configurations for x86-32 x86-64, 
PPC, and ARM,
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> Then there are the languages. This one is 
flexible, and I have two ideas in mind, and I would pick whichever one 
everyone was most comfortable with.
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> about the kernel-mode components:
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> (please interrupt me if you like)
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> I would use the VS compiler to build the 
components directly from within VS
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> tweaking the PE images using the command line 
flags of the  VS Linker.
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> (you are probably already doing something similar)
[02:44] <@AmineKhaldi> yes, we don't use any headers/lib from the msvc 
toolchain, just cl, ml...etc
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> I would make debug/release, and any other type of 
configuration
[02:45] <+BlackRabbit> so for example, let's say that you wanted to do a 
build for ReactOS on x86-32
[02:46] <+BlackRabbit> you would select Debug x86-32, build.

Then Caemyr questioned the need of maintaining the second build system
[02:50] <@Caemyr> BlackRabbit: its not about the time, but need of 
manual intervention at all
[02:53] <@Caemyr> anyway, as this would be side by side addition, it 
would require someone to upkeep it

Amine explained the CMake-based approach, which I would see as the best 
possible solution for this problem, and what I would use myself:
[02:52] <@AmineKhaldi> BlackRabbit: please keep in mind that as per our 
discussion, cmake is one bug away from this
[02:54] <@AmineKhaldi> BlackRabbit: you would be of far far greater help 
if you fix the cmake bug

Outcome of the discussion:
[03:00] <+BlackRabbit> so..I guess that's it. I will work with Amine and 
others for the sandbox.
[03:00] <+BlackRabbit> I will also write up a one-page summary of 
thoughts so everyone can see what I am thinking as we go along.


Best regards,
Aleksey Bragin

On 02.01.2013 9:46, J. C. Jones wrote:
>
> Not so much of a problem, but more of an exploration to see how close 
> Visual Studio could get to the cycle that novice Visual Studio coders 
> are accustomed to, which, of course, would not require cmake. I, 
> Amine, and others had a nice chat in IRC earlier today and we tossed 
> around a few ideas, which we agreed to explore off-line from the main 
> project.
>
> But to be clear, we are not changing from cmake as the main build process.
>
> -JC
>
> *From:*ros-dev-bounces at reactos.org 
> [mailto:ros-dev-bounces at reactos.org] *On Behalf Of *Conan Kudo (???·???)
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 01, 2013 3:59 PM
> *To:* ReactOS Development List
> *Subject:* Re: [ros-dev] Notice Of Intent - Visual Studio Build of ReactOS
>
> What exactly is the problem here? That prebuilt VS solutions aren't 
> included instead of requiring CMake to generate them first, or what?
>
> On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 2:46 PM, J. C. Jones <jaibuduvin at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jaibuduvin at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Some of you might have seen my recent on the post regarding the build
> process:
> http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12240&start=15
>
> As I mentioned, it would help greatly to lower the barrier-to-entry to
> less-experienced developers, as well as more experienced developers who
> might have limited time budgets [Who among us does not have a limited time
> budget?].
>
> I wanted to send out this message to let everyone know that I intend 
> to use
> what bit of time that I available right now, at the beginning of 
> January, to
> tackle this issue head-on. Again, my purpose here is not to step on 
> anyone's
> toes, but make certain that we never turn away a potentially-valuable
> contributor simply because they are unnecessarily removed from their
> development comfort zone. I do realize that there is already on-going work
> on the build process, and I have no intention of interfering with that.
>
> I will wait 24-hours for any objections/reservations from now before 
> making
> a hard commitment, but frankly, we really to get this done, like right 
> now.
>
> Happy New Year. :)
>
> -JC
>

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