First of all I want to clarify some points:
I talk only about large scaled development projects and I don't know
anything about autoconf. What I had to do is to migrate a large project
composed of dozens of Visual Studio projects with no framework to hanlde
them and drive them. I decided to migrate to CMake and I try to explain
why it's not doable to develop a full conversion tool for this case.
I'm not against quick and easy automatic conversions, well I will say
export tools instead, like getting the source files or the link
libraries and stuff, but it's not the point here. The point is "Does
MSVC pose any other special difficulties, other than sheer
mind-numbingness of translation?"
The answer is yes and I'm pretty sure it's not only the case for MSVC.
What do you mean by "framework?"
A framework is all the stuff which is not just a conversion of a project
file (vcproj, makefile, or whatever) to a working CMakeLists.txt. This
stuff drives all the CMakeLists files which cannot live otherwise.
Converting this kind of stuff hiding in a vcproj file is impossible to do.
What's your alternative, write everything from scratch "so you don't have to learn anything?"
I never said this. I think learning CMake is enough and must be done
correctly. Adding a layer of knowledge for a tool that will become
almost useless when the migration is finished is overkill.
You can be pretty sure that 95% of the work is done for basic projects
but for big scaled projects I doubt it, but if people can do it then I
think they'll become famous.
Ok, so you're on record as having your doubts and thinking this
wouldn't work for you. I suppose that's a data point and dealing with
skepticism is an issue.
For big projects with dozens and dozens of project files, the issue is:
"it will not work 100% for me and I don't want to search for the xx%
that does not work". I prefere to start slowly and smoothly using this
mailing list only instead of dealing with two mailing lists, but maybe
you think about integrating a conversion feature right into CMake.
My advice for somebody who needs to convert a big scaled project running
on MSVC:
Focus on CMake, don't cut the learning steps and start with the
beginning is a lot more valuable. Eventually use/write/script some basic
export tools to help you in your process.
--Sylvain
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