>>>>> "NN" == Nicholas Nethercote <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
NN> Hi,
NN> Julian and I have been discussing for a while the idea of creating
NN> a category of "experimental" tools in the Valgrind source tree.
NN> These would be tools that are not necessarily mature, but may be
NN> of interest to people. This would make it much easier for users
NN> to try out experimental tools -- they would be included in the
NN> Valgrind distribution -- which in turn might accelerate their
NN> development.
[...]
NN> We are interested in hearing people's opinions on this idea. We
NN> are also interested to hear if anyone has a tool they would like
NN> to be considered for inclusion as an experimental tool.
I think this sounds like a great idea. Having more tools in the source
tree will make it easier on both sides to keep the core and the tools
working together, and having more tools in the distribution will
advertise Valgrind's flexibility as a framework and potentially, as
you suggest, feed a virtuous cycle of tool use and development.
More broadly, though, I think that similar reasons suggest that other
forms of development on Valgrind could benefit from being closer in
sync with the core, even if it doesn't make sense for them to appear
in the distribution. This includes incomplete architecture and OS
ports, experimental core features, tools that need core changes, and
tools that have only specialized uses. Would it be reasonable to
invite more things like this to live on branches in the SVN
repository?
I think of the Fjalar/Kvasir code I maintain as falling into the
latter category: it only useful to Daikon users, or potentially to
authors of similar tools, not to general developer-users. And it's
certainly way too easy for it to fall out of sync with the core living
as it does in a local CVS repository. Some of that is general laziness
that won't be helped by any organizational change (merging updates
from the core is a non-automatable task with only delayed benefits),
but I think fostering a culture of more in-sync development would be
good for everyone.
-- Stephen
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