Peter Jeremy wrote:
On 2010-Feb-28 21:32:10 -0800, Ondrej Certik <ond...@certik.cz> wrote:
I like cmake and I use it for all my projects, that involve some C++ coding.
There are lots of make-like tools available and different people use
different ones. One disadvantage of this is that where a large project
pulls in bits from lots of different sources (like Sage), this can
result in lots of different make-like tools being required. A quick
check suggests that I have accumulated 8 different ones on this system
in order to build all the software I use.
Another big problem is when only a small number of people know how to use these
tools. The trouble SCons has created on the Solaris port, simply because nobody
really knew how to use SCons.
http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/6595
took 5 months to get a problem solved, when SCons called 'gcc' to build C code,
and the Sun C++ compiler to build C++ code. I'd asked several times on the SCons
mailing list, until finally a solution was suggested which worked. The
apparently obvious solution of import 'CC and 'CXX' does not work, as SCons
purposely ignores ALL environment variable. It is designed to do so.
If one reads the comments in the relevant SConstruct file, it is obvious that
someone else has modified SConstruct before, without knowing SCons. He/she put
comments like
# I don't really understand how this is supposed to work ..
So someone decides to build c_lib with SCons, but nobody else knows how to use
SCons. That person loses interest in Sage and we are stuck and we get serious
problems. Or person A has a problem, and those that do know SCons have no
interest in that problem, so don't help.
If someone does not know C/C++/Python well enough, there is usually someone able
to help. With some of these build tools, there will not necessarily be the
knowledge around.
CMake is not currently widely used. That may change, but at the minute it is far
from common. I've personally never needed to install CMake, as I've yet to come
across a project which needed it.
Until there is a critical mass of users of these tools, I think they are best
left alone, even if they offer some advantages.
Dave
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