Re: [feature/native-comp] breakage on build

[Phillip Lord]

Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:

> Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:
>
>> It's attractive in the first instance to conflate these three. We
>> could install all the dependencies for Emacs and all the tools we want
>> using pacman. But, I think this is wrong, because Emacs itself (i.e.
>> emacs.exe) is a fixed point in time; it needs to have a fixed set of
>> dependencies and they should not update for a given emacs.exe. This
>> fits poorly with the msys2 rolling release. So, problem one requires
>> us to extract dependencies from a given release of msys2 then freeze
>> them.
>
> Agreed, MSYS2 is a fat beast to depend on, but it provides a truckload
> of functionality and saves you from dealing with a tangled hell of
> dependencies. It is reasonable to expect that those dependencies will
> grow and become more complicated on the future (native-comp is a glaring
> example.)


Well I agree. But "fat beast" is an understatement. If I install msys2,
Emacs and all the dependencies, it comes in at nearly 2Gb on disk. The
install takes around half an hour on my machine (and only that fast
because I turn of the Windows antimalware service). It also includes a
pile of stuff that the user might not want (i.e. python or ruby) because
they have their own installation already. So I don't think we can avoid
the necessity for an Emacs with dependencies. native-comp is, indeed, a
glaring example, but it's also the only one. Adding the other
dependencies that have arisen (jansson, harfbuzz and gmp) has been
straightforward enough.


But, you are correct, a value add with all the tools installation of
Emacs might as well just be an msys2 install running. I believe you
already have already done that work! Or a powershell script that pulls
down msys2 installs it and dependencies and then pulls down
Emacs-no-deps over the top might be the way to go.



>> At the moment, number one is working, number two I think needs to be
>> solved as lots of people will want native comp on windows, and number
>> three is (and may remain) aspirational.
>
> The goal you are pursuing is difficult enough and, IMHO, you are
> complicating it further by adding (somewhat fuzzy) requirements that lie
> beyond the point that seems reasonable to me, speaking as an Emacs user.


Maybe. What I see is people using Emacs and getting their spelling wrong
because there is no spell checker.

Phil