[Development] Feature freeze exception for QML type compiler

[Lars Knoll]

I guess qtdeclarative already has one exception, so this would make it two.

The exception is fine for me, as this shouldn’t effect anything outside of qtdeclarative. But please to to get it finished this week.

Cheers,
Lars

On 13 Dec 2021, at 11:37, Andrei Golubev <andrei.golubev at qt.io<mailto:andrei.golubev at qt.io>> wrote:

Hi,

I would like to request a feature freeze exception for adding important
implementation bits of the QML type compiler (QTBUG-84368) planned to be
introduced to public in 6.3.

This compiler exists as a tool in qtdeclarative repository already, with a small
subset of tests and functionality. It is meant as a Tech Preview, focusing on
early adopters to collect the initial feedback on the new QML compilation
process that we plan to further enhance in future releases. The QML type
compiler (qmltc for short) basically translates QML type structure to C++ code.

Note that *unlike* qmlcachegen, qmltc is an "opt-in" component (users must
explicitly ask - through CMake - for their code to be compiled with qmltc and then
also address QML creation differences on the C++ side).

As already mentioned, most of the foundational work is done at that point, but
we lack wider code generation capabilities, enhanced tests and some CMake API
refinements. All of that is covered by
https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtdeclarative/+/334369.

The expected impact on the Qt release is as follows:
- slight impact on public CMake API: the function to invoke qmltc is by far
  separated from the rest of the CMake API bits (so e.g. qt_add_qml_module() is
  unaffected)
- no impact on public C++ or QML API (we have merged all the necessary changes
  already and do not expect any new findings)
- slight impact on building: qmltc tests invoke the compiler during build time
  (that has been the case for a while now in fact), as long as the tests are
  built successfully, no additional issues are expected (nothing else uses qmltc
  in Qt so far)
- no impact on translatable strings
- some impact on documentation (which needs to be added)

The ETA is within this week. The patch should've been in merge-able state on
Friday already but we have encountered some CMake-related issues at the last
moment. These issues are now fixed and I'm waiting for a precheck build results.

The alternative to feature freeze would be to postpone the qmltc release to 6.4.
We would like to avoid this to be able to collect more user feedback within the
Tech Preview stage.

Best Regards,
Andrei

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