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> Trying to compile Firefox was already a challenge. That, and each compile took an hour. At first glance, this sounds terrible. But when compared to software

by thayne 7y ago

> Trying to compile Firefox was already a challenge. That, and each compile took an hour. At first glance, this sounds terrible. But when compared to software projects of comparable size, Firefox is hardly unique. Compare to compiling Chromium for example, or even the Linux kernel.

alephnan 7y ago
Right. I did not mean this as knock against Firefox. At one of the FAANG I previously worked at, it took an hour to compile JavaScript.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I had to compile linux once and I found the process to be trivial. My distro had a guide for how to do it and then how load the kernel in to grub and it was basically just copy/paste
sondr3 7y ago
I think at scale (according to Wikipedia the 5.6 release has ~33M lines of code) the Linux kernel might be one of the easiest (and quickest) projects to compile[1]. [1]: https://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Compile-Performance-Linux-Kernel-AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-680x383.jpg https://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Compile-Perf...
- gpderetta 7y ago
  I haven't compiled my own kernel in at least 15 year but I remember it was quite easy (is make menuconfig still the way to go?). I did have much more free time though.
- haihaibye 7y ago
  Surely most of those lines of codes are optional modules and device drivers - so aren't compiled for most users or this test?
swiley 7y ago
Those are all very different levels of difficulty IMO: Linux is almost trivially easy, only slightly harder than the usual configure && make and has very few dependencies. Firefox is pretty painful but it's doable with a decent amount of care and bandwidth. Chromium is a fairly typical google project where the recommended first step to building it is to become a google employee but some alternative workarounds are also available if that's not practical.
- ohazi 7y ago
  The first time I had a reason to build Chromium was ten years ago. I was using a 32-bit machine with 4 GB of RAM, and that's where the story ends.
- freeboson 7y ago
  Do you have to build chromium with blaze? Or does it use e.g. cmake or something?
  - jbroman 7y ago
    It's uses gn, a build system developed for Chromium. That said, on an Ubuntu system the steps to build Chromium are fairly well-documented and straightforward, as long as you have an appropriately beefy system (unfortunately it's a long wait and a fair amount of RAM is required, and Googlers tend to use a distributed build system). https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/linux/build_instructions.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs...
    - tedmielczarek 7y ago
      gn is of course a meta-build system, the initials stand for "generate ninja". ninja does the actual build execution. The Firefox build system has a similar homegrown frontend called mozbuild, which generates Makefiles for the actual build.
- happosai 7y ago
  Nah building is fine, just follow the steps from Debian/Ubuntu/whateverdistro . But trying to contribute is fun. By the time you've danced all the hoops to allow you to contribute, some Google employee has already refactored the code around the bug. Then you have to be fast enough to get your updated patch applied before someone else has reorganized the code again... At some point I started wondering if indeed I'd get the fix in faster by starting to practice whiteboard interviews.

by thayne 7y ago

alephnan 7y ago

Right. I did not mean this as knock against Firefox. At one of the FAANG I previously worked at, it took an hour to compile JavaScript.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

I had to compile linux once and I found the process to be trivial. My distro had a guide for how to do it and then how load the kernel in to grub and it was basically just copy/paste

sondr3 7y ago

I think at scale (according to Wikipedia the 5.6 release has ~33M lines of code) the Linux kernel might be one of the easiest (and quickest) projects to compile[1]. [1]: https://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Compile-Performance-Linux-Kernel-AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-680x383.jpg https://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Compile-Perf...

gpderetta 7y ago
I haven't compiled my own kernel in at least 15 year but I remember it was quite easy (is make menuconfig still the way to go?). I did have much more free time though.
haihaibye 7y ago
Surely most of those lines of codes are optional modules and device drivers - so aren't compiled for most users or this test?

swiley 7y ago

Those are all very different levels of difficulty IMO: Linux is almost trivially easy, only slightly harder than the usual configure && make and has very few dependencies. Firefox is pretty painful but it's doable with a decent amount of care and bandwidth. Chromium is a fairly typical google project where the recommended first step to building it is to become a google employee but some alternative workarounds are also available if that's not practical.

ohazi 7y ago
The first time I had a reason to build Chromium was ten years ago. I was using a 32-bit machine with 4 GB of RAM, and that's where the story ends.
freeboson 7y ago
Do you have to build chromium with blaze? Or does it use e.g. cmake or something?
- jbroman 7y ago
  It's uses gn, a build system developed for Chromium. That said, on an Ubuntu system the steps to build Chromium are fairly well-documented and straightforward, as long as you have an appropriately beefy system (unfortunately it's a long wait and a fair amount of RAM is required, and Googlers tend to use a distributed build system). https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/linux/build_instructions.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs...
  - tedmielczarek 7y ago
    gn is of course a meta-build system, the initials stand for "generate ninja". ninja does the actual build execution. The Firefox build system has a similar homegrown frontend called mozbuild, which generates Makefiles for the actual build.
happosai 7y ago
Nah building is fine, just follow the steps from Debian/Ubuntu/whateverdistro . But trying to contribute is fun. By the time you've danced all the hoops to allow you to contribute, some Google employee has already refactored the code around the bug. Then you have to be fast enough to get your updated patch applied before someone else has reorganized the code again... At some point I started wondering if indeed I'd get the fix in faster by starting to practice whiteboard interviews.