Contributing to the Meson build system

There are two simple ways to submit your patches. The preferred way is to
send a github pull request. You can also send patches as emails to the Meson
mailing list. Remember to add your name to the list of contributors
in authors.txt.


Coding style

Meson follows the basic Python coding style. Additional rules are the
following:

- indent 4 spaces, no tabs ever
- indent meson.build files with two spaces
- try to keep the code as simple as possible
- contact the mailing list before embarking on large scale projects
  to avoid wasted effort
- all new features must come with a test (or several if it is
  a big feature)


What not to contribute?

There are a few things that people seem to want to add to Meson but which
are not there by design and will not be added either.

The first one is defining your own functions or a generalised for loop.
These are bad because they would make Meson's DSL Turing complete. The 
second feature is a Make backend.

The FAQ has specific information why these two features will not be
added to Meson: https://github.com/jpakkane/meson/wiki/FAQ

Merge requests adding either of these two features will be automatically
rejected. Please save everyone's time (especially your own) and don't start
working on these features.


Do I need to sign a CLA?

No. All contributions are welcome.