[Nix-dev] Almost 50% of all Hydra jobs for Nixpgks/master don't compile

[Domen Kožar]

Hi all,


On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 8:48 PM, Peter Simons <simons at cryp.to> wrote:

> Hi Eelco,
>
>  > you really should set meta.platforms, to prevent the package from
>  > showing up on platforms where it doesn't work.
>
> I would like differentiate two kinds of "doesn't work":
>
>  1) Doesn't work, won't work, and cannot possibly work (because the
>     package is inherently system-dependent).
>
>  2) The package *should* work on some platform, but doesn't (because we
>     haven't managed and/or cared to fix the build errors).
>
> I would black-list a platform because of (1), but not because of (2).
>

The only thing that matters here is user experience. If users want to
install a package
and it fails compiling, the result in a bad day. For NixOS core developers
that means "it's time fixing",
but giving false hope to the rest is a bad idea.

The way Eelco setup current infrastructure is optimized with that in mind:
package supports certain platforms
 and sometimes we don't want to build it (binary software, big software,
etc).

I do agree that we need better documentation for "community standards", but
no one is to be blamed that it
doesn't exist.


> I think we agree, though, that the list of builds jobs scheduled on
> Hydra should be cleaned up a little, right? That's the issue I really
> care about.


I would propose to have monthly NixOS sprints that are focus on QA. That
turns out to be quite effective at
other open source projects I participate.

Domen
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