[Interest] Oops! Somebody's got a bad case of dependency bloat!

[Michael Jackson]

On Apr 10, 2013, at 3:02 PM, Thiago Macieira wrote:

> On quarta-feira, 10 de abril de 2013 11.55.24, Bob Hood wrote:
>> No doubt you meant what you said.  However, it hardly changes the fact that
>> the one omitted is rather ubiquitous, regardless of your personal feelings
>> about it.  I have no love for Microsoft (especially after Windows 8), and I
>> hate Apple and their ecosystem snobbery with a passion.  However, as a
>> commercial developer, I understand the need to support them as part of basic
>> business practices.  While I may curse them like a sailor privately, I
>> never allow my prejudices to reach my customers through my product.
> 
> Actually, it's pure statistics.
> 
> Operating systems where Qt current is known to run:
> 
> 	Windows
> 	Mac OS X
> 	Linux
> 	*BSD
> 	Solaris
> 	QNX
> 
> The majority of those have Perl.
> 
> And really, I installed ActivePerl on my IT-locked-down-and-virus-scanning 
> laptop easily. I *really* do not understand what the big deal is -- was my 
> experience atypical?
> 
> If you want to build a hugely complex framework like Qt, with a million lines 
> of code, please understand you'll need to get a beefy machine and install some 
> dependencies. If you don't want to build, try using one of the pre-built 
> binaries.
> 
> Let me give you another important point:
> 
> we're trying to make the source releases to be as close as the repositories on 
> which we (Qt developers) develop Qt. Why? Here are a few reasons:
> 
> * we expect that most people who build Qt from sources are Qt developers 
>    themselves (majority of users will download binaries and the stats prove 
>    it);
> 
> * we want to reduce the need of testing of the source releases by 
>   "leveraging" the testing that is done daily by developers (that is, if the 
>   source releases are substantially different from the repositories, the fact 
>   that dozens of people compile Qt daily proves nothing);
> 
> * we want the source packages to have cryptographic verifiability that they 
>    weren't tampered with, by having the sources match *exactly* the 
>    repository, which is already cryptographically verifiable.
> 
> I understand this makes some people's lives a bit (or a lot) harder. I 
> understand Christian's concern of managing a farm of computers (by the way, 
> don't you have a centralised software deployment solution?)
> 
> I'm just hoping that you guys understand that the changes are done for good 
> reasons, they aren't done without forethought. And that Perl has been an 
> industry standard for 3 decades.
> -- 
> Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
>  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center

OK, I'll bit. Lets see here. Open Web browser, type http://www.qt-project.org, click the "Downloads" button at the top. Start looking for a compatible release. OH 64 bit Qt.. Wait that is Qt 5. Next section. Qt 4.8.4.. Looking ... looking ... looking.. Hmm. Nothing about a VS2010 SP1 64 bit windows installer. FAIL.

It is a really BAD Assumption that just because I Need to build Qt means that I AM a Qt developer. Qt is a Tool for me to use to build my apps. I REQUIRE 64 bit on windows. YOU Never provided that with the Qt 4.8.x series so I am FORCED to build Qt from scratch.

And just because a "majority" download the installer does not mean "ALL". It is YOUR JOB AS A Qt DEVELOPER/MAINTAINER to make MY life easier. That is your job. 

It takes about 1 year to get a new piece of software approved to be on the computing systems I have to deal with. So, while we may not have admin on our boxes we can _eventually_ get the compilers and such for our systems. Asking for Perl just delays us even longer.

 And _my_ solution if I had the time would be to rewrite what ever perl is doing in C++ so we can get rid of perl. Lots of other large projects do things like this to make it easier for their developers to get up and running with a minimal amount of fuss. Why can't Qt.

Cheers
---
Mike Jackson