Re: Using CMake

["Murray Cumming" <murrayc murrayc com>]

> On Fri, 2006-08-11 at 08:57 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
>
>> http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Documentation.html
>
> Yes, indeed that is the CMake I meant -- there is of course more than
> one `cmake'.
>
>> which appears to be very unofficial (or just official but crappy) and
>> has
>> these problems at first glance:
>> - Can't specify the version require.
>> - Looks for GTKGLArea, for no apparent reason. Hardly anybody needs
>> this.
>
> The latter doesn't worry me but the former is an issue, though I think
> it can be programmed, it just hasn't been as yet.
>
>> I guess there built-in GTK support is implemented with some script
>> somewhere. Maybe you can do something similar for gtkmm and give it back
>> to them.
>
> Yes it is and I think it needs a lot more work to be as functional as
> the m4 macros associated with Autotools.
>
>> The UsePkgConfig macro mentioned on that page is probably more
>> appropriate.
>>
>> But after this first disappointing (though superficial) introduction to
>> CMake, it doesn't seem worth it to me.
>
> The quandry for me is that I find the Autotools really rather yukky
> though they can do the job, well on UNIX anyway.  On Windows it is a
> non-starter (they work under Cygwin and MSYS but these are side-line
> technologies for Windows applications).

You'll need these if you want to do cross-plaform building. I don't know
of any non-command-line way to do cross-plaform builds. And autotools is
the best way to do that now. It can be learnt: See my openimus.com
documents, for instance.

If you want just a windows build and don't like using these, then you can
use whatever you'd normally use, such as MSVC++'s project files, with all
the problems that they'll give you.

>  I have looked at SCons, Rant,
> Rake, Waf and CMake and whilst some of them have really strong features
> as build systems none are yet as functional as Autotools is currently.
> Of course for GTK, Windows is more or less a non issue, it is
> fundamentally a UNIX technology so I guess for GTKmm and related
> technologies Autotools works and so there is no need for anything else.
>
> The KDE people have switched from Autotools to CMake (mostly to deal
> with the multi-platform issue) but may be they are the only people who
> will.



Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com