Re: Meson and Autotools, or only Meson?

[Kjell Ahlstedt <kjellahlstedt gmail com>]

On 2020-03-26 11:01, Murray Cumming wrote:

> On Thu, 2020-03-26 at 09:42 +0100, Kjell Ahlstedt wrote:
> > Complete documentation of Meson is at https://mesonbuild.com/.
> >
> > The README files of libsigc++, glibmm and pangomm contain very short
> > descriptions of how to build with Meson and with Autotools. Available
> > options are in the meson_options.txt file. Or, in the build
> > directory, run "meson configure". warnings=fatal is the default. I
> > have tried to make the "warnings" option equal to the Autotools
> > equivalent, except that "fatal" is the default.
> >       
> I wonder if that's wise. It will lead to unnecessary build breakage,
> for instance for packagers, when they upgrade compilers or
> dependencies. If this remains the default, we might need to give people
> obvious instructions about how to build more forgivingly.
>     
    You're right. I haven't thought of that, I must
      confess. In Autotools builds the default value is 'min'. What do
      you say about default value 'max'? That will enable the same
      warnings as 'fatal', but the warnings will not be treated as
      errors.
    
> >  If you want to see exactly which warnings are enabled, look at the
> > meson.build file in the package's top directory.
> >
> > Gtkmm itself can't be built with Meson yet. That's several months
> > ahead, I think.
> >       
> You might consider, if you like, not removing autotools from the other
> builds until gtkmm uses Meson, if you remove autotools. That would be a
> simpler story.
>
>     
    We can keep the Autotools support until cairomm,
      atkmm and gtkmm have got Meson support.