[cmake-developers] CMake alternative language

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Wednesday, January 13, 2016 10:59:39 yann suisini wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a new user of CMake, but I just want to express my newcomer point of
> view.
> Honestly , I can feel the power of CMAKE, but it's a real pain to learn ...
> I'm using CMAKE for an embedded platform with a non GNU compiler , ant at
> the end the CMAKE description is longer than the one I built directly in
> Ninja.
> I had to write a python script to parse my eclipse project xml to create a
> list of sources files usable by CMAKE.
> The first thing I thought was: why this is not a part of cmake ? And the
> second thing was : why not using the scripting power of an existing
> language like Python(or other one) and add CMAKE as a framework / library ?

My personal opinion: if the full power of python would be available, the build 
scripts would quickly turn into real programs, because programmers would be 
tempted to do so if all of python would be available. Then developers would 
have to understand two programs: the program itself, and the "build program".

I'm not saying that the cmake language is beautiful, but it helps to keep 
cmake scripts somewhat simple, and not evolve into a second program 
additionally to the actual program which is being built.

Alex