[CMake] Why is Ninja generator disabled by default?

[David Cole]

Please take a look at the CMake dashboard:

  http://open.cdash.org/index.php?project=CMake

I will allow the ninja generator to be enabled by default after interested
parties fix all the failing tests in the "Nightly Expected" section related
to the ninja generator submissions.

Honestly, I was opposed to the ninja generator being merged to 'master' and
enabled at all because of the failing tests on our dashboard. Luckily for
all you ninja fans out there, I do not have dictator powers. ;-)


David


On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Andreas Mohr <andi at lisas.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 10:40:03AM -0400, cmake-request at cmake.org wrote:
> > From: David Cole <david.cole at kitware.com>
> > I agree with Bill here -- we cannot turn it on by default until it works
> > sufficiently for typical use cases.
>
> So, what would be needed to turn CMake on by default?
> 'cause it does not "work sufficiently for typical use cases" :->
> </asbestos_suit>
>
>
> While there might be backwards compatibility reasons for only actually
> having Ninja truly enabled once it truly works (after all after some years
> certain user code may resort to merely checking whether the feature
> is provided or not, rather than doing sufficiently precise checks
> "well, in this CMake pre-beta it actually was still broken,
> and 3 days later they fixed it"),
> I cannot help but wonder whether this configuration (build-time disabling
> rather than a slightly special way of runtime disabling)
> is hindering progress a bit due to artificially limiting developer uptake.
> OTOH people who tend to like playing with certain bleeding edge things
> (like me)
> are actually able to enable it manually - it's just somewhat more
> effort:
>
> > For specialized use cases, if you know you want to turn it on, you can
> > easily re-build a CMake of your own that has it enabled. Simply turn on
> the
> > advanced cache option CMAKE_ENABLE_NINJA when configuring CMake.
>
>
> Andreas Mohr
>
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