Re: [Boost-build] Future development

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-04 20:57:36

on Wed Oct 03 2007, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> As I've mentioned before I have yet to hear an argument that makes
> meta-make systems, like Cmake, worth the effort.

I'm not convinced one way or the other.  It seems like you have lots
of fears which may or may not be realized.

> First what we get from the Cmake community is that we don't develop 
> *part* of the build system ourselves. 

Sounds significant to me; potentially *very* significant, since the
high-level facilities provided by CMake are much more powerful than
the very basic facilities provided by Perforce Jam.

> What we also get is that we have to test our extra changes to
> it. And we have to test that bugs in the make system are ours or
> theirs (just like all that time we spend in figuring out if a C++
> problem is a Boost bug or a vendor bug). And we have to test all the
> make systems that Cmake produces. And we have to test Boost in all
> the make systems Cmake produces (for example testing MSVC with both
> nmake files and VS project files). We also gain the pleasure of
> fielding user bug reports and figuring out which make system might
> be at fault.

Is the KDE project having problems with any of these things?  It
doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion that the use of a meta-make
will lead us into trouble.  Another way to look at it is that the make
systems targeted by Cmake are all very stable and reliable, and CMake
only uses their most basic and straightforward constructs.

I'm not saying I know which approach is better, but I'm finding it
hard to convince myself that using CMake would definitely lead to
problems.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com