[Build-common-hackers] recommending verbose build logs

[Julien Cristau]

On Wed, Mar  2, 2011 at 02:21:48 +0100, Matthias Klose wrote:

> It's always interesting to look at build logs, or to receive bug reports of the form
> 
>   CC
>   <compiler error message>
> 
> or
> 
>   CCLD
>   <linker error message>
> 
> without knowing how the compiler or the linker were called.  Maybe it is
> convenient for a package maintainer watching the build scrolling by (some of
> these are even colorized), but lacking this kind of information in the first
> place seems to be the wrong thing.  So please let us deprecate this anti-feature
> and recommend verbose build logs by default and only turn them off by request
> (e.g. with DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noverbose).
> 
> The only reason (I know) for for needing quiet builds logs should be handled
> depending on the buildd (e.g. if sending/emailing a large log is unreliable).
> 
> The majority of quiet build logs comes from cmake based systems and (newer)
> automake based systems, so maybe this could be handled by cdbs and debhelper for
> the majority of packages.  Other proposals how to include the important
> information would be welcome.
> 
> I would like to see a finalized proposal as a "soft" release goal, or a release
> recommendation.
> 
I think this should be handled by -policy.

Cheers,
Julien