[Development] New library dependencies

[Giovanni Bajo]

Il giorno 31/ott/2011, alle ore 13:17, <lars.knoll at nokia.com> <lars.knoll at nokia.com> ha scritto:

> 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.

Agreed. 

> 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.


I'm not sure who is the "you" in the above sentence. A maintainer?  Or a patch submitter?

The choice of the (subset of the) language is a different beast from adopting new libraries. I believe that choices like "C++11 allowed in source code" or "Feature X,Y,Z of C++11 allowed in source code" should be taken by maintainers/Lars, at least for the essentials modules, and published in the wiki. I can't see how else things should be done -- it's a guidance for any random contributor on the way code must be written, and it saves everybody from wasting time using a language feature that is not allowed because of constraints that might not be apparent.
-- 
Giovanni Bajo   ::  rasky at develer.com
Develer S.r.l.  ::  http://www.develer.com

My Blog: http://giovanni.bajo.it



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