[CMake] Call for Module maintainer volunteers

Brandon Van Every bvanevery at gmail.com
Wed Jul 25 14:46:22 EDT 2007


On 7/25/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
>
> CMAKE_MODULE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 1.1.0 FATAL_ERROR)

Having 1 CMake version number that everyone cares about, and 1 CMake
Module version number that everyone cares about, will simply confuse
everybody as to what the heck they're requiring.  That's a bad dance.
It also slaves the release cycles of unrelated modules to each other.
I'm not using most of the modules, and I really don't care if 1 pesky
module wants VERSION 1.1.0 when I only need VERSION 1.0.0.  The module
release volunteers shouldn't be slaved to each other either.  If they
have to wait on what each and every module maintainer does, then
they're not going to ship much of anything.  Conversely, if they don't
wait, then bumping the module version number doesn't mean anything for
most of the modules.

Having 1 CMake version number that everyone cares about, and a module
version number for each and every module, might be reasonable.  But
those module version numbers would have to be documented to be of any
use.  CMake has big problems with transmission of documentation
changes, just as bad as the module QA problems and just as much in
need of more infrastructure.

The module version number also has to assure something, like that bugs
got fixed, new bugs didn't get introduced, interfaces are obeying
modern coding standards, and/or new capabilities got added.  Or else,
why bother to check it?  And of all these concerns, what are we
actually interested in?  Are volunteers going to document exactly how
fixed or broken any of this is?  Fat chance!

Maybe others have great insights to offer here.  But I strongly
suspect that CMake QA simply is what it is, and all we can do is
endeavor to improve it.  The guarantee we're looking for is probably
to require a given CMake version, monolithically.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every


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