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An Introduction to Modern CMake

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Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#111

Post by wirrbel »

bendmorris wrote: post #9
baby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This syntax is also uber ugly. I can’t understand why C still hasn’t a proper build system that is either using convention over configuration (like Go or Rust) or something like cmake but with a proper syntax (maybe something in pyhon?)

Scons ( https://scons.org/ ) is one alternative. The configurations (and Scons itself) are Python.

I liked scons but it is what I would consider a legacy project that I would not introduce in new software or actively switch to.

If you like scons check out meson, which feels similar I think.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#112

Post by wirrbel »

nwmcsween wrote: post #68
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #58

I think the best advice I can give to someone learning about cmake is to use meson instead. I once had dozens of codebases using cmake, and have since moved most of them to meson and start most new new projects with meson.

I dislike meson, it mixes configuration with generation when a separate project (if even really needed as sh is fine) for configuration could exist.

What?

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#113

Post by slavik81 »

mianos wrote: post #38
baby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This syntax is also uber ugly. I can’t understand why C still hasn’t a proper build system that is either using convention over configuration (like Go or Rust) or something like cmake but with a proper syntax (maybe something in pyhon?)

There is a python one, waf, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waf It is awesome but not very popular. I wish it was more popular. As a python and C++ developer the build files and up so much clearer than anything else. I write and use cmake files every day and I don't like it at all.

Have you tried doing anything complex? It's been a long time since I last used Waf, but I found it very difficult to extend.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#114

Post by nwmcsween »

wirrbel wrote: post #112
nwmcsween wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike meson, it mixes configuration with generation when a separate project (if even really needed as sh is fine) for configuration could exist.

What?

It mixes configuration as in ./configure related with generation as in build generation.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#115

Post by slavik81 »

baby wrote: post #8
tux1968 wrote: post #4

The recommended compatibility boilerplate for new projects is tedious. There must be a way to include this knowledge in cmake itself rather than requiring every "properly" configured project to get this right: cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.1) if(${CMAKE_VERSION} VERSION_LESS 3.12) cmake_policy(VERSION ${CMAKE_MAJOR_VERSION}.${CMAKE_MINOR_VERSION}) else() cmake_policy(VERSION 3.12) endif() This is all before you ev…

This syntax is also uber ugly. I can’t understand why C still hasn’t a proper build system that is either using convention over configuration (like Go or Rust) or something like cmake but with a proper syntax (maybe something in pyhon?)

Shake looks promising to me. It has a Haskell front-end, and clearly has had a lot of thought put into it. That said, I have never tried it.

Despite CMake's attrocious syntax, the underlying compilation model has always worked more or less as I expected. I can't say that about most of the alternatives I have tried. I was frequently left confused and frustrated by my build systems until I found CMake.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#116

Post by ecnahc515 »

Game_Ender wrote: post #108
khazhoux wrote: post #83

Can anyone with experience with Bazel, Buck, or Pants chime in?

They are quite different, speaking of Bazel it’s designed to be an all inclusive build system for any language at essentially infinite scale. Which means it: - Has nice Python based DSL - Strongly encourages 100% explicit dependency specification - Has built in caching (local and remote) - Built in test result caching - a fully featured build graph query language - Built in distributed execution support (for any buil…

One downside I found: it makes heavy use of symlinking which doesn't always play well with other tools (in particular: Go tools) and I found made things particularly annoying when I used Bazel from inside docker and outside docker (the symlinks left don't match what's on my host).

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#117

Post by mianos »

slavik81 wrote: post #113
mianos wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a python one, waf, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waf It is awesome but not very popular. I wish it was more popular. As a python and C++ developer the build files and up so much clearer than anything else. I write and use cmake files every day and I don't like it at all.

Have you tried doing anything complex? It's been a long time since I last used Waf, but I found it very difficult to extend.

It has been a while but I wrote an ARM and Atmel cross build system for Arduino boards. It was hard keeping compatibility with the IDE environment but the result worked and was not half as ugly as a cmake setup.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#118

Post by rleigh »

twic wrote: post #18
baby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This syntax is also uber ugly. I can’t understand why C still hasn’t a proper build system that is either using convention over configuration (like Go or Rust) or something like cmake but with a proper syntax (maybe something in pyhon?)

I've been recommended Boost.Build, aka b2, the build system Boost uses to build itself, but also usable for any other project: https://boostorg.github.io/build/manual/develop/

Did they also recommend any documentation or examples? Because I've yet to find anything that comes close to the extensive CMake documentation. Heck, even GNU autotools have better docs and examples than b2.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#119

Post by rleigh »

bendmorris wrote: post #9
baby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This syntax is also uber ugly. I can’t understand why C still hasn’t a proper build system that is either using convention over configuration (like Go or Rust) or something like cmake but with a proper syntax (maybe something in pyhon?)

Scons ( https://scons.org/ ) is one alternative. The configurations (and Scons itself) are Python.

It's awful. It's not even a build system; it's a framework to make your own custom special snowflake build system that is unique to your project and which contains 1% of the functionality you get for free with cmake.

Take a trivial problem: enabling threading in a cross-platform manner. CMake: "find_package(Threads)" Autotools: "ACX_PTHREAD" SCons: Write it yourself.

Now multiply this by every single other detail of your project. It's wheel reinvention writ large, and no one else will have a clue how to build or work on your project.

Re: An Introduction to Modern CMake

#120

Post by rleigh »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #84
pedrocr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those look like exactly the kinds of dependencies I'd go for if I needed to write a new C build system. Nothing ridiculous about them.

The emacs dependency is odd to say the least, but I'm pretty sure CMake doesn't actually depend on it. I don't know much about Gentoo but perhaps the question mark after it means it's just a suggested dependency.

It will be the cmake-mode for editing CMakeLists.txt files.
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