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Community Update #2

· 2 min read
Jess Perkins
Premake Admin & Developer

For this cycle (I work in eight-week cycles and fill in as much Premake work as I can), I completed a long overdue pruning of the pull request backlog. Working up from the oldest, I was able to get it down to just four, all in striking distance of merging and just needing a little follow-up (assistance welcome!). I'll drop a list of all the PRs that were moved at the bottom of this update. Because…

…more importantly, while I have this opportunity to log solid blocks of time to Premake (thank you!), I'm taking on its biggest weakness: the project configuration system, the heart of the program that stores your scripted project settings and serves them back to the exporters and actions. The shortcomings in this system are the reason why it's so difficult to support per-file configurations, why we struggle to express makefiles succinctly, and why we can't do a better job of scaling up to large numbers of platforms/architectures/toolsets/etc. Fixing this fixes many things.

To get this done in the most expedient way, and with the least disruption, I’ve spun up a new working space at premake-next. For those interested, you can read more about what I'm doing, why, and where it's all headed over there. And I’ll also continue posting regular updates here on the Collective.

Which brings me to the part where I give a huge THANK YOU! to our continuing sponsors CitizenFX Collective and Industrious One. I would not be able to tackle any of this were it not for your continued support. 🙌

For the next cycle, I plan to start filling in the details of an improved configuration storage approach and, if possible, merge another pull request or two.

~st.

Community Update #1

· 2 min read
Jess Perkins
Premake Admin & Developer

Say hello to the new Premake OpenCollective!

As I'm sure you are all too aware, Premake development has slowed to a trickle. I've been taking on more and more client work to keep the books balanced, and there simply isn't any useful time left over at the end of the day. A not uncommon problem!

So I'm trying an experiment: can we, as a community, create a pool of funding to speed up Premake's development? Is there enough interest to make it happen? If so, I would be delighted to transition hours from client work back to Premake, as well as put funds toward bounties and recognizing contributions from the community.

The experiment is now officially underway. As long as it continues, I'll provide regular updates on our progress and upcoming work. This cycle, I was able to…

  • Set up this OpenCollective, enabling the Premake project to accept contributions to fund on-going development and community support (#1314, #1316)

  • Register @premakeapp on Twitter for announcements and group communication (and maybe a little self-promotion). Come join us! (#1315)

  • Improve the project on-boarding experience with a new README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md (#1324, #1325)

  • Improve the collaboration process with new issue, feature, and pull request templates (#1326, #1327)