[CMake] OO and/or IDEs

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-12-17 23:02-0500 Brandon Van Every wrote:

> I guess you have no fear of a Disruptive Technology biting you in the ass.

That is correct.  Disruptive technology by definition is overwhelmingly
superior, and I like such technology and don't fear it in the least.  Also,
I am comfortable with change so therefore I tend to be an early adopter of
disruptive technology. But life is short so I don't adopt new technology
unless there is a real and overwhelming case (not just marketspeak) that it
is _much_ better than what I am using. For me, CMake was disruptive
technology (overwhelmingly superior) compared to autotools, and therefore it
was a no-brainer decision for me because of my comfort with change.  If/when
I adopt my next build system it must be similarly overwhelmingly superior to
CMake.  But right now, I am pretty satisfied with CMake and cannot imagine
when the next build-system revolution will strike.  Some here have guessed
three years, but my own feeling is it will be _much_ longer.

Anyhow, changing your strategy to deal with disruptive technological changes
is a waste of time at best; by definition disruptive technology changes are
extremely hard to predict and therefore there is no change in strategy that
will stop them.

OTOH, discussing possible incremental changes to CMake such as improved
regex is well worthwhile because of better service to users and the pride
that goes with that. But I don't think such changes are going to affect when
the CMake tipping point occurs.  I think that tipping point has already
happened based on the rate of CMake adoption in a software area (build
systems) where everybody ordinarily dislikes change.

Alan

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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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