Cargo plugin

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

Hi Miha,

I am happy to see the move being done :)

Am Mittwoch, 20. Dezember 2017, 16:21:14 CET schrieb Miha Čančula:
> Hello,
> 
> I (with some help from Friedrich Kossebau) recently moved the KDevelop
> plugin for running the Cargo buildsystem for Rust into KDE infrastructure,
> it's now in playground, with the repo at
> https://phabricator.kde.org/source/kdev-cargo/ . Build system,
> translations, phabricator and cmake integrations have been setup.
> 
> Now I would like to know if there is interest to get the plugin released
> alongside KDevelop, and if so, what would be needed to do it. Apart from
> easier intallation, there are some #ifdefs to support versions 5.1 and 5.2,
> which can be removed if the plugin is released on the same schedule. Is
> there anything else, either in code or in other parts, that should be done
> to improve integration?

I propose to create branches now instead of the #ifdefs, to align the 
kdevcargo repo with the kdevelop one (same like kdevpython and kdevphp):
* 5.1 branch
* 5.2 branch (as the current stable one)
* master as the development branch

Translations and CI could cover 5.2 branch as usual (meaning stable strings 
for translators in that branch).
And people still on KDevelop 5.1.* could use the 5.1 branch to build their 
copy for themselves, like they have to do now.

> I know that support for Rust the language is in a bad state, and will be in
> the foreseeable future, despite Emma's efforts, simply because there is no
> stable and maintained way to get the AST. I think this is a big shame
> because the language itself is great. So this plugin may not be as useful
> as I hoped when I started. But still, I use the cargo plugin almost daily
> and so far it's working well. Directly jumping to errors is much easier
> than using the command line to build the project, even without the colorful
> language support I've grown so used to.

I agree with this.

Sven, Kevin, could you start to add kdevcargo to the app bundle builds from 
master (appimage, windows, etc)?
There is no big cost involved: no strange build-time dependencies, and the 
runtime dep on cargo is only interesting for people using cargo-based 
projects.

And Miha could be doing some separate kdevelop 5.2 targetting releases for now 
(I offer to assist you if wanted), so linux distribution would feel more 
motivated to pick that up and push it to users.
Ideally for 5.3 then release are done as part of the big kdevelop releases. 
[[And if life is perfect, we will have managed to get kdev-rust back on steam 
as well (poking around already)]]

IMVHO It would be good to go for some release-often-and-early mode here, given 
the hotness of Rust, it is now where the young curious developers are looking 
around to see where to contribute in the field.
And because people cannot simply do "cargo build kdevcargo" to get the plugin, 
it is on us to help and push the new stuff out into the distribution channels.

Given Rust is a very promising and growing language, it would be nice if those 
of us using it (or exploring it for a start) could keep using KDevelop, our 
beloved code twisting tool :)

Cheers
Friedrich