Re: C99 (was: Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc)

[David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 04:14:15PM +0000, Jonathan Perkin wrote:
 > > > Something like this? https://github.com/drecklypkg/dreckly/actions
 > > 
 > > Yes, exactly this.
 > > 
 > > I would like to understand better why this cannot be in pkgsrc itself.
 > > Because Dreckly is on GitHub and pkgsrc is not?
 > 
 > Being GitHub-native does make a few things easier, but there's no technical
 > reason why it couldn't be done using the GitHub mirror, or a separate
 > repository like I did last year with https://github.com/pkgsrc-ci/pkgsrc
 > that was posted to the lists:
 > 
 >   https://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2024/07/23/msg029644.html
 > 
 > or any other custom system like Jenkins etc that we run in-house.

What it requires that GH provides is following the commits and
triggering on each one. This is a headache with CVS (the best way to
do it is to subscribe a bot to pkgsrc-changes), but it's quite
feasible to do by hand with the conversions.

Otherwise it's just another bulk build feed.

The reason the original bulk tracker design included tracking commits
as well as build results (and cross-correlating the two) is that you
need something like that to be able to keep track of what's happening
and how it fits together.

(It's also possible immerse yourself in the feed so it's all indexed
in your head. That's pretty much a fulltime job. I used to do it.
Joerg used to do it. I don't have time these days. He gave up.)

The problem is not that we don't have enough test results (although at
the moment we may not with Jonathan's having been shut off), the
problem is that they aren't watched, and we don't have the
infrastructure to allow ordinary people to do that watching.

That some people apparently wilfully break the tree in freezes and
whatnot is also symptomatic -- it's much easier to contain such
behavior when the resulting problems are readily visible.

 > The only reason is culture.  As Jason said there was little to no interest
 > in the work I did last year, on which dreckly is based.  There were a grand
 > total of 2 pull requests to test commits, one from you and one from Jason.
 > Same goes for the last 13 years of me offering to run bulk builds for any
 > larger changes.  Nobody has asked me to perform any of those since Joerg
 > left.

I don't think that's true, but if it is, something bad's happened to
the culture while I've been not paying much attention the last couple
years.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost