Port Nix-Perl to Meson

[p01arst0rm]

Motivation

The current buildsystem impacts Nix portability, and obstructs development of Nix on non GNU/Linux systems. Replacing the buildsystem with meson fixes this, along with adding better access to developer tools (i.e. valgrind).

Context

#3160
NixOS/rfcs#132
#9342
NixOS/nixpkgs#26850

[Ericson2314]

I think ] and even ) on their own line with trailing commas for the last list item / argument would be preferred.

[p01arst0rm]

I think ] and even ) on their own line with trailing commas for the last list item / argument would be preferred.

the style isnt standard across the codebase, there doesnt seem to be anything to suggest which should be used.

[dcbaker]

There's an inconsistant use of spaces on both sides of :, I'm partial to the space on each side style, but probably should just pick one or the other and stick with it.

[Ericson2314]

the style isnt standard across the codebase, there doesnt seem to be anything to suggest which should be used.

For C++ we put the ) on the same line, but for { ... } initializer lists we always put the } on its own line. That would be the equivalent of [ ... ].

[roberth]

I love to see progress on this.

Just a small point: could you use the imperative mood instead of past tense in commit messages?
Nix, Nixpkgs and Git itself use it that way.

[nixos-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2023-04-03-nix-team-meeting-135/42962/1

[roberth]

@Ericson2314 is this stuck on style alone?

[Ericson2314]

@roberth Yes, if that is even a blocker.

[p01arst0rm]

@Ericson2314 is this stuck on style alone?

style can be fixed trivially, waiting on consensus of whether to merge before investing more time :)

[roberth]

👍 from me.
@thufschmitt has approved of it too.

Based on the notes, while Eelco wasn't convinced, he didn't outright reject it, so I think we should try it. After all, the point of doing a part of the project first is that we can evaluate meson in practice.

[p01arst0rm]

sounds good, ill fix up the style issues and get the pr corrected.

[Ericson2314]

Yes and now that mesonbuild/meson#13055 is merged, I think all style matters can squarely follow upstream recommendations, rather than me winging it :)

[Ericson2314]

I corrected a few small things, and this now has my final approval