[PATCH 1/3] build: Format build items

[Amar Takhar]

On 2023-01-17 08:39 +0100, Sebastian Huber wrote:
<snip>
> 
> The Python modules to work with specification items are in 
> rtems-central.git. This repository contains also a format specification 
> of the build items. We could add an action to a Github work flow to 
> check the build item format for pull requests and commits.

I don't chime in here very often but after seeing the recent changes I'm 
extremely confused.

There are now tools that sit outside of the RTEMS repository that now change 
source files in RTEMS?

I have never seen it done this way before.  What version of this tool have you 
used?  How can anyone in the future possibly debug this?

What should happen here is this tools should sit in the main repository.  Any 
required changes made and then a command run to generate new output:

  ./waf <somecommand>

This lets us know that the output in this commit was generated by code existing 
in the previous commit.  There is no need to version anything it's already done.

Having it sitting outside of the source repository makes debugging impossible.  
Case in point is the commit message here.  No explanation as to where these 
changes have come from.  No commit version.  I spent a very long time figuring 
out what was going on and I could not figure it out without digging through the 
lists.

How is anyone in 5, 10, 15 years down the road going to sort through this?  What 
if I want to make a change in 10 years and regenerate.  It is impossible as I 
have no idea what's been done let alone where to look.

I'm not against the purpose of the tool or the work has been done but this is 
not the correct way to handle generated files within a repository if we want to 
maintain the ability to make changes or debug years down the line.


Amar.