[Insight-developers] About Complexity and Modularity

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi,

  This is an optimistic message  :-)

We are used to the idea that the toolkit is huge and complex.
That's true when we look at it as a whole, however if we only
want to run just one example instead of compiling and running
all the tests things look much simpler.

For example, this is what it takes to build Curve2DExtractor
in a Pentinum III at 1Ghz under Linux :


 0) Running CMakeSetup (without changing options) : 17 seconds

 1) Compiling Insight/Code/Common                 : 27 seconds
 2) Compiling Insight/Code/IO                     : 19 seconds
 3) Compiling Insight/Code/BasicFilters           :  3 seconds
 4) Compiling Insight/Unsuported/Fltk             : 26 seconds

 5) Compiling Examples/Curve2DExtractor           : 81 seconds
    (where classes are finally instantiated)

                                          Total  : 173 seconds

Addiding some time for jumping from directory to directory
and typing commands, the whole example can be ready in about
5 minutes.

We have been advising users here to disable "TESTING" in
CMakeSetup. Most of them don't really need (nor are
interested in) the tests, but they end up being penalized
by loading the about 180  projects associated with them.

One of the strengths of the toolkit is its modularity and this
is not visible when we test it as a whole.



Luis