TODO.md

ToDo: To make it better...

I have set up myself to make an awesome build tool. But as each project's nature, it has a todo list. Here it goes!

• Support creation and manipulation of files by mapping the oldschool FILE* f*() functions into the os-pfs module.
• Finally introduce the usage of actions instead of building all targets.
• Implement sanity checks to make sure that an action/target/rule object is correctly entered.
• [-] Introduce external(name) {... opts ...}
• Implement the detector module.
• Implement an overall caching storage to make it possible for the app to store a cache for detector and alike.
• Somehow introduce console colors for all platforms.
• Introduce pre-inclusion (require()ing all files within a specified subfolder)
• Introduce addition to require() to automatically include a project. I.e.: require.project "submodule/"
  • And what if the project has a custom bootstrap.it? o.o It shouldn't, but that might actually matter. Therefore, this feature should come along with actual Project support.
• Begin using the prepare() method for rules.
• Implement the tag() mechanism for usage inside targets/externals and the function to do a proper lookup.
• Introduce the array + operator. I.e.: var a=["foo"] + ["bar"]. o should now contain: ["foo","bar"]
• Proper SHA2 implementation
• Properly implement the lib+func checks (libdl on linux and what on Win32?)

Added 19th Dec. 2014, 3.40AM

• Introduce dependency tracker
• Rewrite void Run(void*) for a better update tracker. It currently will happily rerun a task multiple times. It needs to learn to only run a task once, and only once.
• Add + operator for Object.
• Better error handling if OS actually crashed. Currently int main(int,char**) will report that no targets were built whilst it actually has an exception written ontop of it.
• Separate debug/non-debug builds
  • Should allow some options to be set for output folder, etc... Maybe use a Profile kinda thing?
• Better Windows linker support / flag passing / warning handling.
• Implement a build(Array) method to allow scripted builds (i.e. from within a function, add tasks to the queue.)
• Make rules able to depend upon targets also.
• Let targets finalize themselves (i.e. copy resulting binary to root folder - or link it at least)

Added 25th Dec. 2014, 1.27PM

• Introduce a proper dependency tracking. Resolve target outputs and add them to the dependencies.
  • May make it recursive.
• Finally write detect.write_*() functions.
  • detect.write_header()
  • detect.write_json()
• Proper build flags for the IceTea target
• Introduce an install kind of thing.
• Teach bootstrap.it these rules:
  • ASM: Assembly
  • C#: CSharp
  • Framework: OS X Framework
  • Component: A generic module
  • Concat: Combine inputs into single output
  • Shared libraries
  • Static libraries (Partialy)
• Implement these settings: [Rules now use the settings, so they are userland-defined.]
  • native.framework_dirs: OBJC, OBJCXX
  • OBJC/XX.GC/ARC: Settings for garbage collection or ARC
  • LIB.rpath: Search paths and install name
  • COMPONENT: target binary, other settings
  • ASM: Defines and such
• Finally take bootstrap.it into memory within a post-build
  • Using the incbin utility.

Added 20th Februrary 2015, 10.21AM

• Rewrite build executor (Thanks to @martine :))
  • First generate all the tasks, then loop over them to execute them.
  • Wait on multiple tasks (commands) and check for their status.
    • If failed, let the other commands finish first, then exit.
  • Use stlplus::async_subprocess.
  • Create a subclass that reports bool done().
• [-] Make settings.LINK.libraries unique (i.e.: only one -lmylib per array)
  • Should probably make Array.dedupe.

Added 20th November 2015, 11:07PM

• Implement a Topsort mechanism
  • Luckily, advice was retrived here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/30249477/2423150
• Possibly generate a graph.
• Maybe introduce RegEx support.
  • I can, via extensions.

Added 10th Janurary 2016, 6:42AM

• Re-implement a describe/it style testing framework as seen in:
  • https://github.com/stephenmathieson/describe.h/blob/master/describe.h

Added 12th Janurary 2016, 5.47AM

• Make sure that files within a target actually exist.

Added 13th Janurary 2016, 4.20PM

• Add a rule - and options - that allow it to be "not run".
  • Makes it possible for targets to depend on header-only libs.
  • Get extra settings in or trigger other configure steps.
• [Never] Build the same target for multiple rules. I.e. as shared and static library.
  • This might result in chaos. Rather, just copy the input object to multiple targets.
  • Or just depend on the parent as a lirary and go from there.
• Write proper process classes. $() is nice, but more complex classes are needed.
  • SubProcess: Pass{async:} with either true or false.
  • shell will not be affected by this. It uses an entirely different routine anyway.
• Rewrite parts of detect in OS itself to simplify source.
• Store info about input files' last-changed date. On subsequent runs, filter these, and manipulate the queue accordingly.

Added 16th Janurary 2016, 1.02AM

• Overwrite internal ObjectScript classes to extend behaviour.
  • OS::initPreScript(): can run a script for initialization. We can use that in IceTea::initializeModules(). We can also override require()!
  • OS::resolveFile(OS::String) -> require.resolve: Resolve a file.
• Utilize OS::Core to get ahold of the backtrace.
  • Useful for finding the currently executed file!
• Introduce Template. A class to take .in files and transform them.
  • No extra class needed. Simply using OS now.
  • However, I should add @NAME@ substitutions...
  • But that would require Regex O.o so I might not.
• Export cached values into ObjectScript, so that we can process .in files.

Added 18th Janurary 2016, 5.12pm

• Advanced APIs:
  • Compile a file directly, utilize IceTea's functionality to properly resolve the compiler and any settings. Provide a "Template target" to serve all the various settings.
  • Simplify the usage of sub-builds.
• Find better ways to merge as many tasks together as possible.
  • Idea: Look-ahead. See if topmost task in next level has any unbuilt deps, and if not, lower it to current.
• Improve caching and step-minimizing.
  • File hashing is only one thing...
• A way to have sub-builds trigger changes in upstream. So that generated code gets re-compiled into an executable.
  • This actually should happen, since the hash would change. Hm...

Added 13th March 2016, 4:40am

• Overhaul Task:
  • Implement profiles property. Each function corresponds to a scheme.
  • Use double-underscore to indicate private methods.
• Projects:
  • Name, description, version.
  • Each project can have it's own steps/rules. Falls back to global ones.
  • Projects can import steps/rules from others.
  • Projects are imported with their bootstrap.it file first.
  • A included project's .IceTea folder becomes available only to the project - call it private resources.

Added 17th March 2016, 7:09am

• Default paths for Pluma based plugins
• Introduce "install" step for IceTea!

Later that day

• [New concept] Flag targets, allowing them to:
  • Specify the kind of tooling they want. (Native, Emscripten, Cheerp, ...)
  • Give steps the ability to be not applied. Even if the pattern matches, but a flag is not set, dont use it.
• Recursive dependency traversal. Ouch.
  • Target A depends on B, which depends on C.
  • Merge C into B, into A.

Added 17th March 2016, 7:09am

• [-] Add compiler -target support.
  • Might not work on Windows.
  • Will allow for stuff like Cheerp to work.
  • Partially implemented when Toolchains become a thing. Just use an extra flag.