Browser Development • Re: 34.2.0 build failed, --enable-jxl unknown ??

This has been the way the Mozilla build system works for a long time. Invalid configure options are fatal.

Maybe it's time for certain things to change, seeing the Python environment already is.

And there's a difference - maybe too subtle - between invalid and redundant/obsolete. Unknown/invalid options would be those that have never been implemented, or are simply typos. Redundant/obsolete would be those that at some point in time were valid, and then were not. They are/were known.

Since many/most? people that build by themselves may not [always if ever] be aware of all changes made to the entire code base, notifying them during the build process that something isno longer valid but doesn't break anything - as opposed to breaking the build because something has never been valid - would be at least kind to them in my humble opinion.

In order to build today I had to close all applications (except for the mail app) and use BleachBit to clean memory, because there's not much available for such project and it needs contiguous memory. Breaking the build process lead to me running the file manager to find the configuration file, then run a text editor to modify it, then close them both and run BleachBit again. What a wonder to see the same error and breakage again... because I had accidentally modified the wrong file. So open file manager again, open text editor again, modify the right file this time, close both apps, run BleachBit again to clean memory for the third time. Finally the build went through in 139:29.21 for building + 4:26.74 for packing. Is this just a bit harsh for a redundant option...?

Would it be easier and more useful for anyone if with each new release a list of valid config options would be posted on the Release Notes page so that self-builders could take note before starting their own build? I suppose not. Adding to a list - even a separate module to be imported - and checking against that list while the Python system already does a validity check, would be easier in my opinion. Not much complexity to add a string to a list of strings (only when necessary) and perform an additional check. Maybe @athenian200 could look into this and provide his own opinion on the matter as long as he's working on the switch to Python3.