[Daca-general] undertaker and DACA

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 22:02:16 (CET), Raphael Geissert wrote:

> Hi Reinhard,
>
> I was reading about VAMOS and the undertaker (thanks to Julia for bringing it 
> to my attention) and was wondering how could Debian use it.
>
> From what I understand, the main check now is detecting dead code based on 
> configuration models.

Thanks for your interest. Indeed, that is the main check that is usable
for now.

> Does that mean there's no benefit from using it unless a per-software project 
> model is written?

Well, the main point of our approach is
to crosscheck variability models between the configuration tool and the
actual implementation. We've implemented this for Linux, which uses
the KConfig language to describe its variability and CPP to implement it.

> or can it detect impossible cases such as [1]?

In principle, this would be a "simple" inconsistency check that does not
require a crosscheck. However, as Christoph already has pointed out, we
haven't implemented #define properly yet. We have already an
implementation idea how to do that, so there is a realistic chance that
we can check that in a later version. However, as always, help is
welcome :-)

> Do you think it would make sense to integrate the undertaker as part of DACA?

I'm not sure if I already understand enough of DACA. In principle I
integrating something like undertaker to check the variability in debian
would be a very great idea. First steps: Identify where we have
variability, where is it specified and how is it implemented. Next step:
let's make undertaker understand it!

> Thanks in advance.

No, I have to thank you for your interest! :-)

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4