Whilst we're at it, is there any consensus to make the default build settings more friendly to developers?
The default is still perf which takes a very long time. devel2 would be an appropriate choice I think for newcomers. Matt On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 2:56 PM Tobias Dammers <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 07:09:25AM +1100, Julian Leviston wrote: > > As a recent newcomer, it’d be nice to have the option there as a link > > with a warning sign “here be dragons, but try this out if you’re > > interested”. I tried it. It seems better than regular make already (I > > don’t have to guess at appropriate concurrency, for example, I just > > throw -j at it and it works it out assumedly because GHC can work out > > the number of capabilities), and it seems to work out which builds it > > needs to do next automatically. Both those things - at least - are > > more beginner friendly than manually cloning the mk/build.mk file, > > running ./boot && ./configure && make -j8 then adjusting the > > mk/build.mk file again to get make to be faster. > > > > So, FWIW, I say put the link on the page at the top as an alternative, > > mark it with a warning saying something along the lines of that it > > might not work, but it’s the future, and it’s simpler and easier if it > > does, and feel free to try it out, then fallback to make. There are > > plenty of sharp rocks for beginners, and ironically the existing > > make-based build system is probably one of them. (Having said that, > > it’s very helpful to know the stages of compilation, so hopefully > > whatever docs we arrive at will point the beginner to something > > explaining what’s going on as they do their first bootstrapping build, > > for the curious. > > Actually, after talking to both the Simons as well as Alp, one of the > core people in the Hadrian project (if not the mastermind), we > tentatively decided to write the Newcomers' Guide for Hadrian, not Make. > In principle, Hadrian should be able to do everything that is needed for > this, and the "regular" code paths have been tested extensively, and as > you have noticed, it is a lot more user friendly. We may still want to > link to the Make-based build instructions somewhere, but present > Hadrian as the default option. > > A short explanation of build stages will of course still be in the Guide > - they are just as relevant to Hadrian as they are to the Make build > system. However, the tutorial is quite long as it is already, so I want > to keep it as short as possible, delegating in-depth explanations to > other (ideally existing) wiki pages. > > If you like, you can follow along with my progress: > > https://github.com/tdammers/ghc-wiki/blob/wip/newcomers/newcomers-tutorial.md > > _______________________________________________ > ghc-devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list [email protected] http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
