Re: Native vs not

[Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>]

On 03/11/2011 10:13 AM, Richard Purdie wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-03-11 at 04:34 -0700, Gary Thomas wrote:
>> As pointed out in another thread, I'm trying to build a native
>> package which sends "I need native" ripples throughout much of
>> the Poky infrastructure.
>>
>> Does having a native version available for any given package incur a cost?
>> If not, would patches for [all of] the packages I need be acceptable?
>>
>> So far, nearly all of the affected packages built fine, just adding native
>> to BBCLASSEXTEND.  Many already build nativesdk versions already.
>
> There is a cost incurred by doing this since it does increase parse time
> and this is something user exposed which we do try and keep under
> control.
>
> Having said that, the BBCLASSEXTEND technology has a lot less overhead
> than some of the older approaches to native/sdk recipes.

As is, I created a separate layer with a bunch of bbappend files that are
only
   BBCLASSEXTEND += " native "
I suppose if I never needed them, I could just not enable that layer.

>
> The main reason I've been against native everywhere is that having
> native versions available makes it far too easy for people to add native
> dependencies which encourage feature creep without thinking through the
> huge additional dependency chains, the extra build time and other
> implications. Often there are slightly more difficult but worthwhile
> ways we can avoid the native dependency.

Such as?  I started down this path needing a native tool (which admittedly
came from an OE recipe librsvg) which then cascaded into cairo-native and
beyond, totally 22 packages!.  If I knew of a short circuit for this, I'd
certainly entertain it.

-- 
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Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
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