[CMake] Finder repository

[Hendrik Sattler]

Zitat von Pau Garcia i Quiles <pgquiles at elpauer.org>:
> I know how git works (and mercurial, too, by the way) but I don't see
> people setting up their own git repositories just for other people to
> pull two FindWhaterEver.cmake.

I have some around, too, but would not do that, either. Simply because  
not all have a server at hand to do that.

> Even if people really interested in sharing their finders would up git
> repositories, we still have the search and quality problems
>
> * Search: while searching for a FindXXXX.cmake, you would visit a lot
> of repositories one by one

Indeed. Additionally, not all are generic enough, often written for  
that particular project's needs.

> * Quality: as you don't know how many people downloaded that particular
> finder, you've got no way to know if that particular FindXXXX.cmake is
> good or bad because you would not know how many people downloaded it.

People have to download it even before seeing that it's unusable.
Additionally, a rating system is not worth it. Instead, let people  
report bugs and submit patches, independent of the original author.

> The search problem would be easily solved by a CMakeForge. What it uses
> to store the finders is not important, it could perfectly be git
> instead of just plain files as SourceForge, RubyForge, etc do.

Or "trac" (has plugins for almost every VCS out there).

> The quality problem is trickier. I know "number of  downloads" is not
> the best quality measure but it's better than nothing.

Feedback in form of bug reports give is much better. I don't know if  
there is a system with a rating mechanism.
However, quality is not really that important, it must be generic enough.

You could reduce the number of FindXXX.cmake files considerably, if  
the pkg-config support would be better by producing a full-path  
XXX_LIBRARIES, etc. like normal FindXXX.cmake modules do. I hate to  
write FindXXX.cmake modules that are only wrappers to achieve that :-(

CMake needs a better integration with other systems of finding such  
definitions, IMHO. On good thing would be to make pkg-config usage  
absolutely transparent, maybe even .la from libtool. That would make  
many find modules obsolete.

HS