[CMake] cmake support Dev C++

Andy Dingfelder DingfelderA at SirTrack.com
Mon Jul 30 01:44:44 EDT 2007


Brandon, 

I hear what you are saying loud and clear, and agree pretty much with
what you are saying.

As you alluded to, my query was simply a way of finding out the current
state of things, and I very well my get my A into G and organize some
work around improving the integration between cmake and eclipse.  

What I don't want to do though is reinvent the wheel.  I do think it is
important to learn from others past mistakes and success stories and I
value any experiences like this that you and others can share.

Getting back to my vision for how cmake *could* work better, I find
myself comparing cmake to maven.

In this case, maven is a widely used mature tool for doing (java)
builds and was not integrated (or at least not very well) into eclipse. 
I very good team of volunteers has spent a lot of time developing an
eclipse plugin for maven2 and it is now a huge success.  What they did
NOT do is tie maven to eclipse.  What I mean by this is that Eclipse
uses maven but does not drive the overall maven strategy or
functionality, as maven is a huge success on it's own, via the command
line, much as cmake is.

Why am I worrying about eclipse (plugin) integration?  To put things
into perspective, there were over 1.3 million downloads of eclipse in
the first 30 days eclipse 3.3 was available.  What I do not know is how
many users downloaded the C++ CDT system (I assume hundreds of
thousands).   I have asked this question but have not gotten a response
yet.  

Personally, my motivation is that I want to use Eclipse on Linux to
develop both java and c++ apps, and want them to run on mac, Linux and
PC.  I have seen multiple discussions in a variety of places that talk
about how to do this, some with better luck than others.  I see cmake as
a natural fit for Eclipse as (IMHO) Eclipse is perhaps the most widely
used *multi-platform* environment out there, running on basically any OS
that java runs on, and everyone here knows the strengths of cmake, so I
don't need to expand upon that.  

I look forward to hearing your ideas and thoughts on this topic.

Cheers,

Ding


>>> "Brandon Van Every" <bvanevery at gmail.com> 30/07/2007 3:29:07 p.m.
>>>
On 7/29/07, Andy Dingfelder <DingfelderA at sirtrack.com> wrote:
> I personally think that the Eclipse CDT might be a good option to
> explore instead of focusing on other smaller, less used IDEs.

Well, yeah, like, duh.

> Thoughts from any other Eclipse users out there?

But there's this funny thing about open source.  It's not about
"thoughts."  It's about actions that actual people choose to
undertake.  And they do it for their own reasons.  Whatever turns them
on, or whatever makes them money.  If a Code::Blocks individual or
group up and decides they're gonna make Code::Blocks support for
CMake, hey presto, suddenly you have Code::Blocks support.  If an
Eclipse individual or group gets a wild hair, hey presto, Eclipse
support.

What doesn't exist, however - and I think sometimes people make this
mistake, which is why I'm saying this - is some kind of labor pool
that just goes and implements stuff because it would be a good idea.
That's somewhat true in the proprietary commercial world, but no open
source volunteer works that way.  Thus from the standpoint of people
who will actually do the work, it has nothing to do with whether
Code::Blocks is more or less advisable than Eclipse.

I chose to make a great CMake build for the Chicken Scheme compiler.
I did it because open source builds are a sorry state of affairs on
Windows.  It just seriously bugs me, and I don't think I should have
to defect to Linux or swallow the FSF kool-aid to see quality
engineering.  I don't know if there are even 100 people in the world
who care about what I have written.  But a few people do care, and I
know that unlike most of the other open source builds out there, mine
definitely doesn't suck.  I made $0 on this.  I did it for purely
ideological reasons, not what was advisable.  In fact, I was so
ideological that I almost got evicted twice while pursuing the work!
That got old; thankfully, now I'm making money on my CMake skills so
honed.

So there's poetic justice in where I'm at now.  But sensible
allocation of resources had nothing to do with why I got started, or
why I stuck with it for a man-year.  In fact, I daresay anyone
sensible would just go get a "real" job and never bother!  Like, one
of those proprietary corporate jobs where some manager tells a bunch
of underlings what's most advisable and where they're going to put
their development energies for the next 6 months.

I don't want to be too harsh on an innocent query.  Soliciting
people's interest is often a 1st step in organizing.  Action is what
counts though.  The only way to lead in open source, is by example.
Generally speaking, you can't tell open source people what to do.
They do what they're inspired to do, because usually there isn't any
other reward for it.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
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