[Development] New library dependencies

[lars.knoll at nokia.com]

On 10/31/11 10:53 AM, "ext Thiago Macieira" <thiago at kde.org> wrote:

>On Monday, 31 de October de 2011 10:44:16 Giovanni Bajo wrote:
>> What is the policy on adding new dependencies to the Qt project?
>
>I'd guess that the maintainer for that module approves. For qtbase.git,
>that's 
>Lars.
>
>Importing third-party source code requires approval under the CLA too.
>
>> To me, it seems a bad idea to add a dependency on any library unless
>>there
>> is a specific use case were it is really necessary. So adding Boost just
>> because it's "cool" (for some definition is cool) doesn't look like a
>>deal.
>> It doesn't help that I specifically dislike Boost, but that's not the
>> subject of this comment.
>
>Agreed. But I know João wouldn't do that: his complaint was that we
>reinvent 
>the wheel just so we don't add the dependency. So I agree with him that
>if 
>there is an implemented solution with no ill side effects, there's no
>reason 
>not to use it.

Compile/build time complexity is one reason to be careful. The other one
is the size of the full stack. We have to be careful and do decent
judgement calls here whether the benefits are worth the additional
dependency.

Supporting some C++11 features on old compilers is e.g. a case where I
wonder whether adding a dependency for everybody is worth it. Most
compilers (we care about) already support a decent subset of C++11, if you
need other compilers simply don't use the feature.

Cheers,
Lars