[CMake] What does `cross-platform' mean?

[Mike Arthur]

On Friday 07 November 2008 11:02:37 Jed Brown wrote:
> I had hoped that by raising the issue of widespread brokenness, there
> would be some response from CMake developers about ways to fix it.  It
> seems like I'm still at the stage of convincing people that there is a
> real problem.  This is why I'm concerned that `cross-platform' may
> actually mean `Ubuntu/Windows/Mac' in practice.
I'm no Kitware employee but I do feel the need to defend CMake.

I've used CMake on Debian, Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, Windows XP, 
Windows Vista, OSX 10.4, OSX 10.5 and custom-rolled Linux distributions. I've 
used it across four architectures and four compilers. I've introduced it into 
two companies I've worked for and use it in my spare-time KDE development.

I've never had any of the problems you described.

That's not to say they don't exist but I think you're doing the classic 
software engineer thing (that I've been guilty of more than a few times) of 
assuming your specific circumstances are the norm and that if you have any 
problems then the application is broken for everyone else. This simply isn't 
the case. I haven't seen any of this "widespread brokenness" you claim.

You seem to say that CMake doesn't work nicely for a specific use-case you have 
and it may not but there's no need to basically troll the whole project 
because of shortcomings in a niche environment.

CMake may not be perfect but it's the best damned cross-platform build system 
I've seen for C/C++ by a _long_ way.

-- 
Cheers,
Mike Arthur
http://mikearthur.co.uk/