[bug#32634] RFC: Process build output

[Danny Milosavljevic]

Hi Ricardo,

On Tue, 04 Sep 2018 17:29:03 +0200
Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> wrote:

> Honestly, I’m not really happy with the results, but I think it’s enough
> to start a discussion about where this should lead.

I think it's at least vastly better than bothering a normal user with build 
output
(which happens pretty often).

> One thing I don’t like is that I had to set the “print-build-trace?”
> default option to be able to display what build is currently happening.
> Unfortunately, for small derivations this leads to output like this:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> Building /gnu/store/2x5xmvimja0pbkvvr8rym91q0249ajiv-fonts-dir.drv - 
> x86_64-linux
> Built /gnu/store/2x5xmvimja0pbkvvr8rym91q0249ajiv-fonts-dir.drv
> Building /gnu/store/diz3pmgrqibvp2pyvgh4wyr4nx5vlx0y-glib-schemas.drv - 
> x86_64-linux
> Built /gnu/store/diz3pmgrqibvp2pyvgh4wyr4nx5vlx0y-glib-schemas.drv
> Building /gnu/store/ss70j6lf8xxiiykdys92iw92khx68ix9-info-dir.drv - 
> x86_64-linux
> Built /gnu/store/ss70j6lf8xxiiykdys92iw92khx68ix9-info-dir.drv
> Building /gnu/store/rh92rslbj4x9abyna6lc11jqifbavx13-librsvg-2.40.20.drv - 
> x86_64-linux
> Built /gnu/store/rh92rslbj4x9abyna6lc11jqifbavx13-librsvg-2.40.20.drv
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> I would prefer:
> 
>     Building /gnu/store/rh92rslbj4x9abyna6lc11jqifbavx13-librsvg-2.40.20.drv 
> … DONE
> 
> or similar.

I agree.  First thing I noticed as well.

> I don’t know about whether the colours are any good; I think the bold
> green is hard to read on a bright terminal, 

Yeah, it's unfortunate that some terminals just swap black and white instead
of inverting all the colors (which would mean that light green becomes dark 
green
etc).

>while the black is hard to
> read on a dark terminal.

Hehe.

> Lastly: the spinner.  It’s a bit boring, I think.

Yeah :)

In this case, boring is good.  It's mostly just to reassure the user that the
build didn't hang (which unfortunately can always happen in principle).

An overall progress bar would be nicer - but it would have to be supported by
the build system - and worse, by "make" etc.  I think that this would be
a larger but worthwhile project.

I did a Knight Rider style spinner in the past, but it's not really adding
anything and it was too distracting to me.

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