dev meeting 20230712

Present: @alizter @ejgallego @emillon @leonidas-from-xiv @lubegasimon @nojb @rikusilvola @rjbou @rgrinberg

• which shell to use in cram tests (#8134, @emillon)

  • most useful part is to be explicit about bashisms
  • on windows, it makes us rely on cygwin
  • today we use which sh
  • possible way to make smaller feature: just allow bash?
  • we want to make users write portable tests but we struggle with that ourselves

• dependency loops when computing artifacts (#7908, @ejgallego)

  • to create install rules, we depend on running binaries
  • melange/coq config technique: use build_system API which can work in some cases
  • resolve_program computes all installable artifacts to get the artifact db. computing the executable and library artifact db separately can be enough.
  • we could be more explicit and ask where the binary is expected to come from to avoid loading everything

• rule streaming (@rjbou)

  • background: we have rules for each package, and also rules that use these. ex: ocaml is built, but also used in other packages.
  • in dune toolchain info is done during context creation
  • rule streaming solves this
  • staging things across contexts works: either the compiler vs the rest; or packages vs user rules
  • send feedback on RFC

• Roadmap of packaging features that we want to work on next (@leonidas-from-xiv)

  • some info missing on the bugtracker
  • possible features: build instructions in the lockfile, implementation of filters, opam substitution
  • start by creating tests: how these opam files should be turned into lock files
  • how to get hash of opam-repository used when locking?

• we didn't get to talk about:

  • benchmark bot (@emillon)
  • dune monitor command (#8152, @alizter)