On Tuesday, 10 August 2021 at 08:08:50 UTC, Alexandru Ermicioi wrote:

>> As I understand, dub plugin system generates only for particular config what selected for current build. But meson.build files should cover all dub abilities simultaneously.
>
> The idea I had was, for a plugin that on deploy to package registry would then generate by default meson build files, and when fetched by dub on your local machine you'd already have everything set up for meson projects.

I doubt the generated files will be good. Roughly, they will repeat dub capabilities, and only.

We might as well just keep using dub or improve already implemented D module inside of Meson.

>> For very simple projects only, because used by this way packages will not be able use Meson. For example, you won't be able to pass from Meson some tricky flag to some object file. Meson as a GNU license, it is pretty viral.
>
> Well, I doubt every person using meson or any other build system would jump into changing stuff in libraries used in the project.

I am on strongly opposite opinion. Any code that you cannot change dies very quickly.

> The point of build systems and package managers is just to say 'I want this, and don't bother me setting every piece by myself', hence having a plugin for meson that knows how to convert dub libs at runtime to smth understandable for meson,

Such plugin is already implemented in Meson:

https://mesonbuild.com/D.html#integrating-with-dub
https://mesonbuild.com/Dependencies.html#some-notes-on-dub

> would be (imho) far more useful, and would cover all dub libs by default. If someone though would want to 'pass special flag' then I guess he can fallback to old way of doing everything with your hands, or the plugin can itself help with parts of it as you've mentioned.

Oh no! I've done it so often and a lot! But after the Meson I do not want to return to this horror.

> Note, that I don't use meson at all, so not sure if it is possible to have plugins for dub, though if possible, then it would be imho better thing to make compared to wrapper packages. Just wanted to suggest you some ideas for consideration.
>
> Also what has gpl license have to do with meson plugin? Per my understanding it would be meson application that would use your plugin not in reverse, so you should be able to have any license you want.

An unfortunate analogy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_license)

If you have already started using a Meson, then all the dependencies are better, let them also be Meson as possible.

On Tuesday, 10 August 2021 at 10:00:43 UTC, Denis Feklushkin wrote:

>> Well, I doubt every person using meson or any other build system would jump into changing stuff in libraries used in the project.
>
> I am on strongly opposite opinion. Any code that you cannot change dies very quickly.

Or, if you about internal switches and flags, this is one of two reasons to use Meson now (as for me).

(Second one is cross-platform builds.)