I'm thinking that given how many things we're already looking to change, On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:22:31PM -0600, Joshua Blocher wrote:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Jon A. Cruz <jon@...18...> wrote:
As soon as i get back in i will commit what i have for cmake build system so far.
I'm one of those people who is a little cautious about changing build systems (imake, scons, etc.).
I'd hate to get most of the way done and find a killer problem at the last minute.
Below are my responses to the points he brought up. I also would hate to get caught at the last second.
Josh, could you post this work up into a branch, for people to review? I'm also concerned about switching us over all of a sudden, without more people having a chance to review it and make sure it definitely is the way we want to go. With the refactoring projects being discussed, changing the build system as well could either be very beneficial in making that work easier, or could put a wrench in the works and generate a lot of frustration... so the more review ahead of time, the more likely we'll be able to ensure things go smoothly.
For what it's worth, I don't have a strong feeling for or against cmake. It's great to see people passionate about it in Inkscape, and I see several big projects have converted over to it with good results. I've played with some simple cmake projects myself and was impressed by how easily they could be put together, and how clear the config files and syntax are. It seems like a nice system, but autoconf/automake is a known quantity and a lot of us at least have enough experience with it to be able to get most stuff done. Also, it sounds like most of the benefits of cmake could be achieved in automake as well, if we just educated ourselves on it better, and cleaned up the cruft that's accumulated in our config scripts. Fwiw, I suspect if we chucked our automake stuff and replaced it with fresh, modern automake, we may be able to achieve most of the benefits of cmake, *plus* we'd be able to carry over specialized logic, tests, etc. from our old scripts where those bits are still worth keeping.
So, I could go either way, but I'd like to make sure we have at least a rough consensus on it among our most active svn users before we commit to changing, and I'd like to have the chance to review and kick the tires myself.
Bryce