[CMake] CMake script vs. Lua (was: Ignoring command return code in add_custom_command)

[Brandon Van Every]

On Dec 14, 2007 1:28 PM, Rodolfo Schulz de Lima <rodolfo at rodsoft.org> wrote:
> Bill Hoffman escreveu:
>
> > I am thinking the lua stuff is pretty much dead at this point (don't get
> > upset :) ), if you see Ken's post here:
>
> I read the whole thread and didn't find any good reason not to adopt
> lua.
>
> Sorry to resuscitate this topic. I wasn't around when this was being
> discussed and don't want to 'kick a dead dog', but I think this issue is
> important and the discussion was inconclusive.

Certain CMake people want to *say* it was conclusive, so that the
issue will go away, but it wasn't conclusive.  In particular, I have
to note the self-selecting nature of the CMake community.  If you
stick around and duke it out with CMake, there's a pretty good chance
you don't think "completeness" in a build language is important.
That's why I started asking around in other build system communities,
to see what they think is important.  Nothing conclusive or
enlightening to report so far.

Ken showed proof of concept for Lua.  "It's too hard" would be a
completely silly argument at this point.

We do, however, have new scope and function operators in CVS CMake.
So we should all play with those for awhile before revisiting the Lua
issue, I think.

I'm also looking forward to PCRE capabilities.  It would make grep,
egrep, awk, sed, and perl tools much easier to replace when migrating
build systems.  Sure, CMake has this "call out to whatever you like"
philosophy.  But I think builds are more maintainable and portable
when CMake gets rid of all those tools.  I also think it's
strategically better for CMake's growth, to have people banging out
more and more CMake script.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every