set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN=0 if you are not a googler - open-source

Can someone explain how being a "googler" or not affects how an open source package builds or not?
When attempting to build v8 the build docs state
"If you are a non-googler you need to set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN=0"
When I set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN to 0 as a "non googler" the build cuts short.
When I set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN to 1 as a "googler" the build doesn't cut short but errors out later on in a way that points to requiring a specific hash value on the build system.
When inquiring about the error on the googlegroup v8-users an employee of google stated:
"It wouldn't enter this code if the environment variable I mentioned
was set correctly. If you do enter this code it's not set. And it is
expected to fail"
Which means the build is expected to fail for "non googlers".
He goes on to say that the build platform I'm on is not supported (non googler, no hash value...) yet that "it should compile at least".
?
Can someone explain how "it should compile at least" ?
If you are a "non googler" do you use another build script and build tools ? Possibly get the source otherwise and use different parameters ? Do you even attempt to build the package at all (in the sense that "non googlers" are not meant to build the package)?
If anyone has some experience here it would be helpful as it would save a lot of time and trouble for people trying to build packages with
set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN=0 if you are not a googler
Thank you.

You should certainly be able to build V8. You do not need access to any special infrastructure or tooling. There are many V8 committers that are not Google employees.
That particular environment variable DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN is different for Google employees because of licensing reasons (distributing Microsoft toolchain via depot_tools), but you can build V8 with and without that variable.

Related

NativeScript, Code Sharing and different environments

Note: this is not a dupe of this or this other question. Read on: this question is specific to the Code-Sharing template.
I am doing some pretty basic experiments with NativeScript, Angular and the code sharing templates (see: #nativescript/schematics).
Now I am doing some exploration / poc work on how different "build configuration" are supported by the framework. To be clear, I am searching for a simple -and hopefully official- way to have the application use a different version of a specific file (let's call it configuration.ts) based on the current platform (web/ios/android) and environment (development/production/staging?).
Doing the first part is obviously trivial - after all that is the prime purpose of the code sharing schematics. So, different versions of the same file are identified by different extensions. This page explain things pretty simply.
What I don't get as easily is if the framework/template supports any similar convention-based rule that can be used to switch between debug/release (or even better development/staging/production) versions of a file. Think for example of a config.ts file that contains different parameters based on the environment.
I have done some research in the topic, but I was unable to find a conclusive answer:
the old and now retired documentation for the appbuilder platform mentions a (.debug. and .release.) naming convention for files. I don't think this work anymore.
other sources mention passing parameters during the call to tns build / tns run and then fetching them via webpack env variable... See here. This may work, but seems oddly convoluted
third option that gets mentioned is to use hooks to customize the build (or use a plugin that should do the same)
lastly, for some odd reason, the #nativescript/schematics seems to generate a default project that contains two files called environment.ts and environment.prod.ts. I suspect those only work for the web version of the project (read: ng serve) - I wasn't able to get the mobile compiler to recognize files that end with debug.ts, prod.ts or release.ts
While it may be possible that what I am trying to do isn't just supported (yet?), the general confusion an dissenting opinions on the matter make me think I may be missing something.. somewhere.
In case this IS somehow supported, I also wonder how it may integrate with the NativeScript Sidekick app that is often suggested as a tool to ease the build/run process of NativeScript applications (there is no way to specify additional parameters for the tns commands that the Sidekick automates, the only options available are switching between debug/release mode), but this is probably better to be left for another question.
Environment files are not yet supported, passing environment variables from build command could be the viable solution for now.
But of course, you may write your own schematics if you like immediate support for environment files.
I did not look into sharing environment files between web and mobile yet - I do like Manoj's suggestion regarding modifying the schematics, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there I guess. I might have an answer to your second question regarding Sidekick. The latest version does support "Webpack" build option which seems to pass the --bundle parameter to tns. The caveat is that this option seems to be more sensitive to typescript errors, even relatively benign ones, so you have to be careful and make sure to fix them all prior to building. In my case I had to lock the version of #types/jasmine in package.json to "2.8.6" in order to avoid some incompatibility between that and the version of typescript that Sidekick's cloud solution is using. Another hint is to check "Clean Build" after npm dependency changes are made. Good luck!

Run Perl in Browser with PerlTray

I am using perl tray from activestate and have a question. I am wanting to make some type of ui or way for a user to set "Settings" on my application. These settings can just be written / read from a text file that is stored on the users computer.
The part I am not understanding though is how to go about making a ui. The only thing i can think of is showing a local perl page that runs on their computer to write to the file. However, I'm not sure how i could get perl to run in the browser when only using perltray.
Any suggestions?
PerlTray is an odd duck. It has an implicit event loop that kicks in after you either fall off the end of your program or after your 1st call to exit(). This makes it incompatible with most other common GUI event loops or most mini-server techniques that operate in the same process & thread.
2 possibilities come to mind:
Most Likely you'll have success spawning a thread or process that creates a traditional perl GUI or a mini-server hosting your configuration web-app. I'd probably pick Tkx, but that's just my preference.
I have a suspicion that the Event Loop used by Win32::GUI may actually be compatible with the event loop in PerlTray, but some experimentation would be required to verify that. I generally avoid Win32::GUI because it's not platform independent, but if you're using PerlTray, you're tied to Windows anyway...

Simplest way to add XML doc to a WinRT project

We have a group of developers moving from C++ to C# and WinRT. We used D'Oxygen as part of our C++ developer builds, and I'd like to continue to have document generation as part of the developer build in C#/WinRT.
It's easy to turn on XML Doc generation, and I believe that will provide warnings for malformed tags, but without actual HTML output, I think our developers will be missing valuable feedback.
Looks like NDoc is now defunct, and I took a quick look at Sandcastle, but found it rather complex. Ideally, I'm looking for something that doesn't unduly burden developers, or require them to remember extra steps as they edit, build, test, and commit. In other words, the best solution would be something that "just happens", like a post-build step, and doesn't add significantly to each developer's build time.
If anyone has had some experience doing this in C#/WinRT, I'd sure like some advice.
Thanks in advance!
Get Sandcastle Help File Builder.
Create a help project for your library in the Visual Studio solution.
Remove Build check mark from Debug solution configuration to build the documentation project only in Release configurations, since Debug is most often used during development. For release build testing or performance testing you can either create another solution configuration or simply switch the option back and forth.
Build the documentation once
Include the documentation file in the solution so it shows up in the Pending Changes window when the file changes.
Kindly ask your developers to build with the release configuration that updates the documentation before check-in or use any other policy to require updating the documentation.
I don't think it makes sense to build the documentation all the time, but it helps to make it easy to do so that when you actually need an updated version - you can build it really quickly.
You can also make sure to use FXCop or StyleCop (forgot which) and configure it to treat missing XML documentation warnings as errors - at least in release builds. Doing it for debug configurations might slow down development and make changes difficult since developers often want to try things out before committing to a final implementation worth documenting.
EDIT*
Sandcastle provides various output formats as shown in the project properties:
I would like to mention ForgeDoc (of which I'm the developer), it could be what you are looking for. It is designed to be fast and simple, and it generates proper MSDN-like HTML output. It also has a command-line interface so you can just call it from a post-build event command in Visual Studio.
I think you should give it a try, as I would really like to hear about your thoughts.

How to know what arguments to pass to a script

Putting aside the security implications of running a script someone gives me, how can I tell, in advance, that the script requires a certain number of arguments? Without reading the code.
If someone just gives me a script, is there a way to know that it takes 4 arguments or whatever the case may be?
I guess I am looking for a best practices answer. I am obviously not a developer and just curious as to how some things are done.
What kind of script you want to know ? Shell or Windows Batch or Ruby or Python ?
For scripts in Python, It's impossible to know the number of arguments without reading the code. In Python, we can pass any arguments into Python script. The script determines whether to use them.
It's expected etiquette that the script's author(s) provide documentation describing some or all of: the script's purpose, expected arguments and operational modes.
Some scripts generate an abbreviated usage message (listing accepted arguments) when run with an appropriate help switch, eg theScript -h, theScript --help or theScript /?.
Scripts that form part of an installable tool, package or application may have an associated "manpage" (man theScript) or published documentation, eg hypertext pages, text files, printed manuals or pages on the Internet. Such documentation might be found by browsing the filesystem / Start menu (Windows) / provided materials and original installation media or by searching the Web.
Of course, this applies only by convention; generally there is no contract that is enforced on the script by a computer system. If someone is "giving you a script" (of questionable origin) then none of the above is guaranteed.
If you expressly receive a script (containing text readable in an editor and not binary gibberish) then the contents might include a section of prose containing useful information without your resorting to reading and understanding the "code".

Autoupdate ala Google Chrome workflow

In the company I am I was asked to write an autoupdate function a la chrome. I.e. It should check periodically whether a new version is available, download the new version and apply it silently the next time the application starts.
I already have something up and running but it is more like a dirty hack than something I feel happy about it. So, I would like to know how to design and implement such a solution. My horrible hack works as this:
Have a mechanism to check whether a new version exists (a database query or a web service)
Download a full zip with the whole new version.
Check file signature. If everything went alright, set a registry value: must update to true.
When the application restarts, if the must update value is true, launch an update program and exist.
The update deletes the contents of the application folder, unzips the update and replaces the old contents, launches the application and exits.
Now, I would like to change it, so it works cleaner. I am planning to send the update as a bsdiff file. It gets downloaded. But the question is, what happens next?
When do apply the update?
Who is in charge of applying the patch? is it the program itself or is it a third program, as I did, which is in charge of applying the patch and relaunch the application?
If your going down the C++ route you can go to chromium and download the Chrome source code and dig around to see how the update is done, this might give you a better idea on how to approach it. Here's an article that might help.
If your familiar with .NET the recently release nuget also has an auto update feature that might be useful to look at, you can get the source code from here. David Ebbo has a blog about how its done here.
I'm not up to date on Delphi but you might be able to use either of the above options.
The workflow you proposed is more or less like it should work, but there's no need to re-invent the wheel - there are plenty libraries out there that will do this for you. Using a 3rd party library has the benefit of keeping your code cleaner while making sure the dirty process of auto-update is contained and working flawlessly.
Trust me, I know. I'm the author of NAppUpdate, an app update framework for .NET (which you might want to try out or learn from).
So, after giving it a lot of though, this is what I came with (for active directory I will refer to the directory where the main program lies, active program is the main program and update program is the one that replaces the active program and its resource files):
The active program checks if there is a new version every certain amount of time. If so, download it
Prepare new version in a separate folder (this can be done by copying the contents of the directory with the program to a subdirectory and applying a binary patch, or simply unziping the new version).
Set a flag that indicates that a new version is ready.
When a program is exiting (and one has to control for different interrupts here):
The active program checks the new version ready flag. Launch the update program and exit.
The update program checks if it can write in the active directory. If so, replaces the contents with the prepared version.
The update program has to recheck links and update them accordingly.
So guys, if you have a better workflow, please tell me.
You could literally use the Google Chrome update workflow by using the Google Chrome updater:
http://code.google.com/p/omaha/
They open sourced it Feb 2009.