[clam-devel] Idea.

[edgley at mnsi.net]

First off, thanks to everyone for the speedy response.  :)

On 29/09/2010 6:48 AM, David García Garzón wrote:
> A Dimarts 28 Setembre 2010 18:14:30, edgley at mnsi.net va
escriure:
>> Hey everyone,
>>    I wanted to make a few new plugins for the network
editor
>> for quite a while now.  I have decent experience with C++
>> from university and subsequently on Windows, but
>> unfortunately, getting CLAM to compile has always proved
a
>> problem for me... 
>
> Setting up clam for development under windows i not an
easy task. All current 
> active developers are working on linux and we are just
crosscompiling windows 
> binaries from linux. So, windows developers are very
welcome.
>
>> Most of the compilation walkthroughs are
>> out of date or I run into roadblocks that I get stuck
on...
>
> Asking the list/irc for concrete roadblocks could help.

As a side note, I've logged into the IRC channel at least a
half dozen times, for hours at a time, and can never get
anyone to stop idling or acknowledge my existence with a
"hello".  To me, that's OK since this attests to how busy
you guys already are, working on CLAM.  Thanks for the
response on this list though.  Until now, I've hesitated to
take up people's time in such a public forum, but I'm happy
to find that help is available here.

>
>>   I'm trying to learn to use the MinGW compiler and get
more
>> familiar with Linux at the same time, and to be honest,
I'm
>> not getting far.  I'm obviously no guru, but I could be
>> helpful to the project.  However, I'm getting very, very
>> frustrated and I'm sure I'm not the only one to find
initial
>> project layout and compilation has been an impediment to
>> their ability to contribute to the project.  
>
> Again, don't hesitate to ask the lists/irc for any problem
you find.
>
>> But I have a solution...
>>    Has anyone considered making a Linux virtual machine
>> available with the compiler already source all set up and
>> working on it?  This is EXACTLY what Maemo Linux does for
>> their SDK and it's enabled hundreds of developers to
>> participate when setting up the compiler, resolving
>> countless dependencies and diagnosing 100 subtle
versioning
>> errors would have otherwise have prevented them from
>> participating.  Hell, I'd love to download a VM, update
the
>> code using subversion and just type 'make' (like I did
for
>> Maemo development)...  What do you guys think of this
>> idea...?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>    MindMusic (Frank Edgley)
>
> Do you mean that you want the VM for the crosscompiling
environment or for the 
> native linux environment?
>

Yeah, the idea was for a VM for the cross-compiling
environment.  As it stands, I have no easy way to write any
CLAM code that runs on Windows (via cross-compilation or any
other means).  Sorry for not being clearer.  :)

> For the native linux environment a VM is pointless.
Dependencies is just a 
> matter of issue an apt-get install (or equivalent in your
distro) for the list 
> of packages we keep in the INSTALL file. Indeed most
distros have available 
> CLAM development binary packages you can just installl and
build your plugin. 
> So, once you have a linux box, you are mostly done and if
you want a VM 
> solution i guess there are pleanty of linux VM available.
>
> For the crosscompiling environment, building a VM is the
last of our problems.
> Current procedure works with CLAM 1.4.0 but lately we have
added some 
> dependencies to clam (python-dev, boost...) and some old
dependencies have 
> been updated so the procedure in the wiki should be
updated. I hope that 
> Natanael and me could setup again a testfarm client for
the crossmingw 
> environment. The outputs of that process, sorted by how
far we go, will be:
> - an update of the wiki procedure to crosscompile
> - an sdk tarball with all the free dependencies (not asio
nor vst) already 
> crosscompiled (which could be used to compile natively)
> - an sdk including nitghtly clam binaries from svn
> - an script to automatically build the sdk with all the
last versions
> - a testfarm client with the former script so we get
warned when they change
> - building a VM containing the sdk
>
> Sadly, we currently lack time to get just the first point
done. But I guess 
> that the second and third points would solve most of your
problems without a 
> VM. You can help a lot by spotting the showstoppers you
find by following the 
> wiki procedure so we can target them.
>

Yeah,  that's a real shame that you guys are so busy.  As I
see it, making it easier to set up the development
environment would allow more developers such as myself to
become active on the project and therefore, get more things
done thereafter.  Once ya got your main compile machine
virtualized, posting a copy of the latest and greatest VM
would be as easy as copying a file.  Then nobody would have
to figure out how to ever do that again.  In addition, for
us to start developing, all we'd have to do is download the
VM, open it in VMware's free player, and do a subversion
update.  No package conflicts or dependency issues or
updates that break things... I won't have to know as much
about the intricacies of Linux and you won't have to waste
your time bulletproofing your install files and helping
Linux-noobs like me.  :)  We know it'll simply WORK cause
the identical VM worked at your place.  If this sounds like
a pain and not worth your trouble, then think of it this
way... 

If it's hard for YOU GUYS (who wrote it) to set up the
cross-compile environment, just figure how impossible it is
for US (who want to help, but can't get started).

Just food for thought.