[cmake-developers] CMake alternative language

[Charles Huet]

I think this problem already exists.
When "projects build elaborate macro/function systems in the CMake
language", you have to understand the build system program. And in my
experience, those systems are widely different from one another.

I have seen a system where you defined lots of variables, then just
imported a file which used those to perform the add_library and such in the
X-Macro pattern (
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Programming/Preprocessor#X-Macros).

I think having a language that allows for more terse expressions would be a
net gain.


Also, I find ironic to preach for a simple language when CMake is mainly
targetted at C++.
C++ programmers are used to having *lots* of very powerful tools at their
disposal (template meta-programming, operator overloading, macros, etc) and
having to choose which one to use for the job.

If you do not trust your team mates to keep the buildsystem simple and to
the point even if they had lots of stuff at their disposal, how can you
trust them with the C++ program ?


Le jeu. 14 janv. 2016 à 09:04, CHEVRIER, Marc <marc.chevrier at sap.com> a
écrit :

> I fully agree with Alexander.
> It seems a very bad idea to use a general purpose script language to
> manage CMake stuff.
>
> For sure, CMake language is a bit “curious” :) and changing for a more
> user friendly one is a good idea but, in my opinion, only dedicated
> languages (I.e. Specialised for the problem to solve) must be considered.
>
> May be a good approach is to enhance current language for more flexibility
> (for example adding capability for functions to return value, etc…)
>
> Marc
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13/01/16 22:21, "cmake-developers on behalf of Alexander Neundorf" <
> cmake-developers-bounces at cmake.org on behalf of neundorf at kde.org> wrote:
>
> >On Wednesday, January 13, 2016 10:59:39 yann suisini wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I'm a new user of CMake, but I just want to express my newcomer point of
> >> view.
> >> Honestly , I can feel the power of CMAKE, but it's a real pain to learn
> ...
> >> I'm using CMAKE for an embedded platform with a non GNU compiler , ant
> at
> >> the end the CMAKE description is longer than the one I built directly in
> >> Ninja.
> >> I had to write a python script to parse my eclipse project xml to
> create a
> >> list of sources files usable by CMAKE.
> >> The first thing I thought was: why this is not a part of cmake ? And the
> >> second thing was : why not using the scripting power of an existing
> >> language like Python(or other one) and add CMAKE as a framework /
> library ?
> >
> >My personal opinion: if the full power of python would be available, the
> build
> >scripts would quickly turn into real programs, because programmers would
> be
> >tempted to do so if all of python would be available. Then developers
> would
> >have to understand two programs: the program itself, and the "build
> program".
> >
> >I'm not saying that the cmake language is beautiful, but it helps to keep
> >cmake scripts somewhat simple, and not evolve into a second program
> >additionally to the actual program which is being built.
> >
> >Alex
> >
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