autoproj installation requires a build environment

[doudou]

There are legitimate uses of autoproj that do not require a build system (e.g. checkout a set of packages, autoproj-sync). Right now, it does need a build system at least for rb-inotify

Since rb-inotify is needed only for autoproj watch, I think it could be made optional. However, I'm not sure how we could do so without breaking existing installs.

If we do assume that watch is used solely with vscode, we can "move" the requirement to rock.vscode, but that feels like breaking backward compatibility in a big way to me.

Thoughts ? @g-arjones

[g-arjones]

I don't think we can fix this without breaking backward compatibility...

Assuming it's not possible, I would make autoproj watch a plugin that would depend on rb-inotify and remove rb-inotify from autoproj. Then we add an API in autoproj to auto install plugins through init.rb scripts and do that in rock.vscode

[doudou]

Then we add an API in autoproj to auto install plugins through init.rb scripts and do that in rock.vscode

Interesting idea the plugin thing ... Maybe simpler: have "default plugins" that are installed unless told otherwise (via e.g. command line option in autoproj_install / autoproj_bootstrap)

Installing plugins via init.rb sounds like a very hard thing to get right

[g-arjones]

have "default plugins" that are installed unless told otherwise (via e.g. command line option in autoproj_install / autoproj_bootstrap)

Sounds good to me