[CMake-Promote] Interesting blogs and random comments about CMake

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Alexander Neundorf wrote:

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>>On the other hand, CMake won't be easier to learn than SCons if the  
>>documentation and tutorials don't improve. 
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>Actually IMO the cmake documentation is good. At least much better than 
>the autohell docs. And better than the scons docs two years ago, don't 
>know about scons docs today. 
>I could find everything I need on the cmake man page and the short cmake 
>introduction on the cmake web page. What was missing was an overview over 
>the cmake variables, this exists now in the wiki. 
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Those of us on Windows don't automatically have man page readers set 
up.  I have MinGW / MSYS and even that doesn't have a man page reader by 
default, you have to do additional work for it and it keeps slipping my 
mind.  In any event it is not good policy to have the variable names 
separated from the rest of the docs, but I think Bill just said there's 
something in CVS now that will address this?  Also, the variable name 
listings on the wiki are incomplete; for instance, CYGWIN, MINGW, and 
PREFIX are not documented.  I learned those by inference from examples 
and poring over the archives, both of which involve a lot of hunt and 
peck that normal people won't do.

On Windows, it would be a good idea to provide "Start... Programs" menu 
shortcuts to the documentation, as this is a standard way that Windows 
users go about looking for such things.  Debatably, one could have a 
"Documentation" button within CMakeSetup.  That's what the "Help" button 
does in all other Windows apps, but CMakeSetup is using a simple dialog 
box approach.  I think the message that "Help" currently displays is 
helpful, so I'm not suggesting it be messed with.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
I won't spend more than 1 day configuring 1 thing.