Re: How to build LilyPond.app on macOS?

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 08:49:55PM +1100, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> I have offered on more than one occasion on the list to do the Python port. I
> have been knocked back, to be more accurate, strongly discouraged, each time.
> As somebody with over forty years of software development experience, I have
> the skills required, but not only that I have the time and the motivation, and
> the inclination to help.

If you are serious, then I would be happy to provide any mentoring
you require.  My rough guess is that it will take 30-60 hours to
make the change.

1) add python 3.x to our Grand Unified Builder:
https://github.com/gperciva/gub
Depending on how well python 3 crafted its build system, this
might require additional patches to their source tarball.
Hopefully it can be cross-compiled with only
./configure --options, though.
We currently have 30 different patches for python in GUB, although
those are spread between 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6.

This step is much more of "sysadmin task" or "unix developer" task
rather than a "python developer" task.  You'll run the script,
wait for a build failure, track down the missing dependency and/or
new ./configure --option required to build on the platform (for
example, cross-compiling for i386 or OSX, while running Linux
amd64), then repeat.

I'm guessing 20-40 hours for this part.


2) (could be simultaneous with 1): update our python scripts to
run in python3.  Ideally, ensure that they can run in 2 or 3 --
otherwise the coordination will be iffy and disruptive to other
developers.

I'm guessing 5-10 hours for this.



3) Make the switch, and fix whatever weirdness appears when people
use it "in the wild".

I'm guessing 5-10 hours.


If you're still interested, let's talk more!

Cheers,
- Graham