[Vm-dev] building plugins outside the tree

[Eliot Miranda]

Hi Subbu,

> On Mar 18, 2018, at 11:15 AM, K K Subbu <kksubbu.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Thursday 15 March 2018 11:36 PM, tim Rowledge wrote:
>> `make` the plugin install the plugin in the appropriate vm related
>> directory, which is a far more complex story than it should be.
> 
> Precisely! Making a plugin shouldn't be this hard. When I looked at the build log, a large chunk of build time was taken up in making plugins - one at a time :-(.
> 
> Once I install a developer version of Squeak VM, I should be able to make a plugin without having to regenerate the entire multi-platform VM source tree. As a bonus, the developer image can be used as a fallback or bootstrap when no image is given.

But you don't have to.  You can generate the source of a single plugin from a VMMaker image using the VMMakerTool.  This last week I got the tool to open with its fields filled in correctly gif default production.

> 
> Currently, plugin making process is like expecting a linux module developer to install the entire linux kernel source tree just to build a kernel module.

We can do better, but it's work.  At least the new build makefiles to allow one to make a plugin using a single make invocation.  You're welcome to make improvements!

> 
> Regards .. Subbu