[CMake-Promote] Generic installation instructions

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Ok, I think we've all recovered from our New Year's hangovers now.  :-)  
I'm sure we're all helluh busy, I'm no exception.  Nevertheless I am now 
moving forwards with the "create generic installation instructions for 
CMake" project.  My driving problem: yesterday, I assumed responsibility 
for Windows builds and binary releases for Chicken Scheme.  This is in 
part because some new guy has shown up wanting to do Watcom stuff.  
CMake doesn't currently support Watcom, and so his interest threatens to 
send Chicken down the primrose path of divergent build systems.  So I 
figure I'd better get in there and polish off Chicken's CMake build.  
Make it official and nice and squeaky clean and friendly and all of 
that.  Also I'm going to try to get this Watcom guy to work with CMake 
guys to add CMake to support Watcom.

The intent of "generic installation instructions" is not just practical, 
it is also promotional.  All those GNU Autoconf projects have a generic 
"INSTALL" file.  You know, the one that starts with "These are generic 
installation instructions."  It's ubiquitous; I'd like to see a CMake 
install file become similarly ubiquitous.  It would be good for 
mindshare, to have such a file waved under the nose of every would-be 
Autoconf user.  Projects might have both an Autoconf "INSTALL" and a 
CMake "INSTALL-CMAKE.txt" or some such.  A standard name for a generic 
installation file also gives us another way to do web searches for 
CMake, to determine its statistical popularity.  Of course, 
CMakeLists.txt is already such a market, but it doesn't hurt to have 
more markers.

So my initial question is, what should the filename be?  I do think it 
should occur alphabetically at the same place as the Autoconf "INSTALL" 
file.  This suggests to me one of:

INSTALL-CMake.txt
INSTALL-CMAKE.TXT
INSTALL-CMAKE.txt
INSTALL_CMake.txt
INSTALL_CMAKE.TXT
INSTALL_CMAKE.txt
INSTALLCMAKE.TXT
INSTALLCMAKE.txt

I think I like INSTALL-CMake.txt best.  People should debate the use of 
case and underscores or dashes.  This is a marketing decision, and the 
connotations of filename styles matter.  I can't speak to what Unixen 
find irritating, for instance.  I don't know if _ or - makes any 
difference for shell scripting.

A .txt suffix is important to Windows guys; otherwise, we have to 
manually select a program to open the file with.  We have to do this 
each and every time because Windows requires a suffix in order to 
"always open with" a particular app.  Windows is incredibly stupid in 
this regard, and the Autoconf README and INSTALL files are forever 
annoying.  I'm sure the GNU guys love that!  Anyways, does a .txt suffix 
impose any convenience constraints on other OSes?

I will guinea pig you guys on what the file should actually contain, 
once I have a first draft.  Stay tuned.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.