I will quote the valuable parts of the chat for those who missed it:

Answering the question of "How?"
[02:41] <+BlackRabbit> 1. Take the entire tree
[02:41] <+BlackRabbit> 2. Build projects that follow the tree exactly, using directory names, according to the tree.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> So, for example, calc would have a VS project file in it's directory.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> That's trivial, and would take  about 2-3 hours.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> Then, there are the CPU's.
[02:42] <+BlackRabbit> I would make configurations for x86-32 x86-64, PPC, and ARM,
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> Then there are the languages. This one is flexible, and I have two ideas in mind, and I would pick whichever one everyone was most comfortable with.
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> about the kernel-mode components:
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> (please interrupt me if you like)
[02:43] <+BlackRabbit> I would use the VS compiler to build the components directly from within VS
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> tweaking the PE images using the command line flags of the  VS Linker.
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> (you are probably already doing something similar)
[02:44] <@AmineKhaldi> yes, we don't use any headers/lib from the msvc toolchain, just cl, ml...etc
[02:44] <+BlackRabbit> I would make debug/release, and any other type of configuration
[02:45] <+BlackRabbit> so for example, let's say that you wanted to do a build for ReactOS on x86-32
[02:46] <+BlackRabbit> you would select Debug x86-32, build.

Then Caemyr questioned the need of maintaining the second build system
[02:50] <@Caemyr> BlackRabbit: its not about the time, but need of manual intervention at all
[02:53] <@Caemyr> anyway, as this would be side by side addition, it would require someone to upkeep it

Amine explained the CMake-based approach, which I would see as the best possible solution for this problem, and what I would use myself:
[02:52] <@AmineKhaldi> BlackRabbit: please keep in mind that as per our discussion, cmake is one bug away from this
[02:54] <@AmineKhaldi> BlackRabbit: you would be of far far greater help if you fix the cmake bug

Outcome of the discussion:
[03:00] <+BlackRabbit> so..I guess that's it. I will work with Amine and others for the sandbox.
[03:00] <+BlackRabbit> I will also write up a one-page summary of thoughts so everyone can see what I am thinking as we go along.


Best regards,
Aleksey Bragin

On 02.01.2013 9:46, J. C. Jones wrote:

Not so much of a problem, but more of an exploration to see how close Visual Studio could get to the cycle that novice Visual Studio coders are accustomed to, which, of course, would not require cmake. I, Amine, and others had a nice chat in IRC earlier today and we tossed around a few ideas, which we agreed to explore off-line from the main project.

 

But to be clear, we are not changing from cmake as the main build process.

 

-JC

From: ros-dev-bounces@reactos.org [mailto:ros-dev-bounces@reactos.org] On Behalf Of Conan Kudo (???·???)
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 3:59 PM
To: ReactOS Development List
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Notice Of Intent - Visual Studio Build of ReactOS

 

What exactly is the problem here? That prebuilt VS solutions aren't included instead of requiring CMake to generate them first, or what?

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 2:46 PM, J. C. Jones <jaibuduvin@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

Some of you might have seen my recent on the post regarding the build
process:
http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12240&start=15

As I mentioned, it would help greatly to lower the barrier-to-entry to
less-experienced developers, as well as more experienced developers who
might have limited time budgets [Who among us does not have a limited time
budget?].

I wanted to send out this message to let everyone know that I intend to use
what bit of time that I available right now, at the beginning of January, to
tackle this issue head-on. Again, my purpose here is not to step on anyone's
toes, but make certain that we never turn away a potentially-valuable
contributor simply because they are unnecessarily removed from their
development comfort zone. I do realize that there is already on-going work
on the build process, and I have no intention of interfering with that.

I will wait 24-hours for any objections/reservations from now before making
a hard commitment, but frankly, we really to get this done, like right now.

Happy New Year. :)

-JC