Trivia: there exists an audio podcast of a CMake representative talking about the project <http://twit.tv/floss111> for an hour or so. Skip to 4:24 for the content.
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff < ser...@elementaryos.org> wrote: > 2013/2/8 Tom Beckmann <tomjon...@gmail.com> > >> I wrote a script which I think does about what the go build tools would >> do. >> http://pastebin.com/hr8TfdPu >> To see what exactly it should be able to do, check line 30 following :) >> If you want to use it, it'd be best to copy it to /usr/bin, so you can >> just run 'ebuild' whenever you want to rebuild something. >> Some small things like internationalization and installing are still >> missing, but those are quite easy to add, in case there's interest. >> > > The problem about this is we now have 3-layered nested generators. This > thing abstracts/generates CMake which in turn generates makefiles. We have > three different layers with completely different syntax now. > > The topmost level (this script) covers the most common use cases, but the > problem is, when you need to diverge a tiny bit, you can't use it anymore > and have to go to the next level which is completely freaking different. > And you have to make your way through several hundred lines of generated > code even though you've never seen it before (maybe even never saw CMake > before) and have no idea what it does. And that's not even the real thing, > it's a generator too! > > Another problem with hiding complexity instead of axing it is very well > illustrated by this script. Let me quote a command the usage notice: > >> clean - Removes build directory, sometimes required to have new packages >> used correctly >> > So you have to remove the build directory and regenerate it once in a > while. As a newbie, you never know if you should do it after a particular > change or not. You have to either waste time regenerating it every time, or > not forget to try and regenerate it if something breaks. In fact, when > something breaks, you never know on which level the cause is located and > what did you do wrong (or was it just outdated build directory or some > other obscure ritual you forgot to perform?). > > When we get to a three-layered system, isn't it the point where we should > drop it and flatten it all into one level again? Bake seems to do all this > script does and more while being a flat one-level structure. With it you > always work with the real thing. There are no startling transitions in the > learning curve where you should suddenly jump to a whole new level. > > Well, technically there is, it's just much further away so I hope most > projects won't hit it. Bake is designed to be simple and probably won't be > able to cover some really advanced use cases, so if your project grows > really complicated, you'll have to transition to CMake. This is a pretty > jarring transition, but it exists in the generate-the-cmake solution too > and after setting up a pretty complex thing in Bake I think you'll have a > pretty good idea about what your build system does and it will be much > easier to recreate that in CMake. > > IMO the adoption of Bake depends on how much complexity can it sanely > cover, i.e. how far away the transition to CMake is. I believe it's farther > away and less jarring than in the generate-the-cmake approach, but I can't > see the point of taking time to transition to it or write docs for it if it > can't cover even a half of our existing projects. > > Either way this is not the right time for such discussion - any drastic > build system changes should be postponed till Luna+1 cycle. > > -- > Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff > OS architect @ elementary > > -- > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~elementary-dev-community > Post to : elementary-dev-community@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~elementary-dev-community > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > > -- Cody Garver
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