Contributing to KDevelop project...

Fri Feb 21 17:44:47 UTC 2014

On 2014-02-21 14:42:55, Kevin Funk <kfunk at kde.org>wrote:
Kevin FunkAm Freitag, 21. Februar 2014, 12:16:12 schrieb :
> Am Freitag, 21. Februar 2014, 11:57:18 schrieb Kevin Funk:
> > Am Donnerstag, 20. Februar 2014, 23:12:36 schrieb Milian Wolff:
> > > On Thursday 20 February 2014 22:24:37 Radek Taciński wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Hey Radek! See the bottom of this mail for a response.
> > >
> > > > I would like to contribute to the KDevelop project - supporting it on
> > > > Windows could be a good start...
> > > > That would be my first open-source project contribution, so I may not
> > > > be
> > > > familiar with all the stuff I probably should know about...
> > > >
> > > > Let me introduce myself: I'm 33, I live in Poland and I have 7+ years
> > > > professional experience in C++ (+ 2 years of C#.NET before that),
> > > > recently
> > > > (for couple years) more focused on project management, although I
> > > > still
> > > > am
> > > > involved in creating new code as well as find & fix bugs.
> > > > I would like to contribute to this project - mainly to "stop working
> > > > at
> > > > home" after hours :)
> > > >
> > > > And it would be a good experience for me also...
> > > >
> > > > If you think I could help in development of KDevelop - please, let me
> > > > know...
> > > >
> > > > Best regards,
> > > > Radek
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > PS - I could not find an email to send this message to, somehow I did
> > > > not
> > > > want to spam the entire development list...
> > >
> > > But that would have been the proper address :) I'm forwarding this email
> > > there now, please register to the mailing list and direct further mails
> > > there.
> > >
> > > If you have windows knowledge and want to get KDevelop up and running
> > > there
> > > this would be an awesome contribution! We are waiting for people to step
> > > up
> > > on that platform for years. Kevin Funk (also registered on this list)
> > > recently played with KDevelop on Windows. He should be able to give some
> > > input.
> > >
> > > Furthermore, we are in the process of porting the codebase to KF5 (KDE
> > > Frameworks 5), which promises a much more modular foundation for us to
> > > build on. We are not there yet, but maybe it would make sense to put any
> > > windows effort there? The other developers who work on that should give
> > > you some input on this matter.
> > >
> > > Cheers, and welcome :)
> >
> > Hey Radek,
> >
> > Good to hear some Windows guy wants to push KDevelop on Windows a bit.
> >
> > I tackled some of the root issues for getting KDevelop to run on Windows
> > recently, but there are still issues to be resolved before we could mark
> > it
> > as 'stable'. Unfortunately I'm lacking time to push this on continuously,
> > so any help in this regard is very welcome.
> >
> > If you want to get started getting up a development environment for KDE on
> > Windows, please conduct
> > http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/Windows/emerge.
> > 'emerge' is basically the package manager used on Windows to build
> > KDE/Qt/whatever sources and to install binaries.
> > Doing a 'emerge kdevelop' eventually then spits out a 'kdevelop.exe'
> > binary
> > which you can just run there. (Fingers crossed, a lot can go wrong when
> > building all the dependencies for KDevelop and KDE resp.)
> >
> > Currently I'd consider KF5 not stable enough on Windows to play around
> > with
> > KDevelop, so I suggest trying it out under KDE4. There are some issues you
> > can fix there right away, and it would still help us when porting KDevelop
> > to KF5 on Windows at some point.
> >
> > If you need guidance, feel free to contact me on #kdevelop on Freenode, my
> > nick name is 'kfunk'.
> >
> > I even have a junior-job for KDevelop on Windows for you already ;)
> >
> > The issue: KDevelop shows navigation tooltips when hovering declarations
> > (variables, functions, etc.) in source code. These are basically HTML-like
> > popups where you can click on links to jump to files, etc. This is
> > currently broken on Windows (clicks are basically ignored), and it would
> > be a good start to find out what's going on there.
> >
> > Cheers!
>
> Ah, and I forgot:
>
> If you really want to build KDevelop on Windows, you'll need MSVC2012
> (express is fine) at the moment. Nothing else will work (MSVC2010 doesn't
> have C++11 support, Qt4 won't built using MSVC2013 (at least last time I
> checked).
>
> MinGW GCC might work, too, but I never actually tested it. MinGW GCC also is
> supposed to compile much slower than MSVC [1]. And MSVC of course offers a
> fully-fledged IDE + debugger.
>
> [1]
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8029092/gcc-worth-using-on-windows-to-re
> place-msvc

Houston, we have a problem.

Unfortunately, MSVC2012 isn't really an option anymore as well. Just tested.
We're currently using too many C++11 features in KDevelop master that MSVC2012
doesn't support yet [1] (initializer-lists, alias templates). So we're back to
these options:

- Make KDevelop build with MSVC2012
- Discouraged, because that means we have to go one step back
and revert stuff

- Check whether Qt4 and the KDE4 stack compiles with MSVC*2013*
- According to [2], Qt4 as of 4.8.6 should build fine
(that's news to me, didn't test yet)
- KDE4 under MSVC2013 is likely untested, and I have no idea how much effort
it'd be to get it running
(might only require a few compile fixes, maybe not)

- Target KF5 right away
- Setup might be tedious, because emerge doesn't support KF5 yet AFAIK.
That means you'd have to clone/compile all the frameworks on your own.
- Alexander Richardson is doing a lot of work regarding KF5 on Windows,
maybe we want to contact him (arichardson.kde at googlemail.com)

Odd situation, I know... Right now I'd vote for going the KF5 route, as it is
the most future-proof. And that also means KF5 on Windows gets more traction.

At any rate, #kde-windows on Freenode is a good place to ask on how to
proceed.

Greets

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2011/09/12/10209291.aspx
[2] https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-36135

Yes, going through KF5 is maybe the best choice, although as a start I would like to try to compile it maybe with VC2013 (just to try it)...

What would be the best branch to try with?
I've tried master, althoguh I am seeing issues with emerging kdevelop due to missing mysql (some older version is used there, which is not available at least on the server I'm using)
I've tried to go with 4.12, although I've used VC2008 and I saw some missing headers there...

Before I'll go further - I would like to make sure I am using the correct branch :)

Regards,
Radek

--
Kevin Funk
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