Re: [boost] [cmake] Minimum viable cmakeification for Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] [cmake] Minimum viable cmakeification for Boost
From: Peter Dimov (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-06-20 14:20:33

Thomas Heller wrote:
> As a general observation, I see a lot of statements along the lines of "I 
> state that XYZ is preferable over UVW", it would be nice to have to have 
> background information (pros and cons anyone? what do the cmake 
> authors/docs have to say about this?) on those statements so that everyone 
> can form their own opinion instead of having to choose whom to trust about 
> what's "standard" cmake.

That's the problem with CMake, there's no way for someone like me who does 
not follow it to get a definitive answer to what idiomatic CMake 3.5+ is. 
There are several articles about it, they all say more or less the same 
thing - use target_*. I get that. But that's not enough.

I see a general (and very predictable) trend of moving from imperative to 
declarative. Programmers like imperative, but a proper build system really 
prefers declarative, so CMake is trying to evolve towards declarative.

Take for example find_package. It's a command, find me this package, now. 
But it's much better if a library does not issue "find me this package" 
commands, but rather declares which packages it needs. So we get "best 
practice" hacks like redefining find_package. I'm sorry, this doesn't feel 
right.