[Dart] Re: [CMake] HowTo make another Dart client like CMake's ctest?

[William A. Hoffman]

At 03:46 PM 2/21/2006, Matt England wrote:
>At 2/21/2006 02:40 PM, William A. Hoffman wrote:
>>I would think that the Dart/CMake communities as a whole would be better off if your efforts went directly
>>into ctest.  My preference would be for you to use ctest "straight up", and if you need new features,
>>contribute them back to the project.  I think you may also be better off as ctest will keep up
>>with changes in Dart, and continue be a supported package for the foreseeable future.
>>You should figure out what your requirements are for your project, and see if
>>they are compatible with ctest.
>
>In the short term, yes (simply because it's quicker)  In the long term, no.  I have had a require to embed this capability natively with my software for quite a while now.  I don't want to have to lump in the CMake/ctest apps/software/framework with every piece of software I distribute, for a variety of reasons (non-tightly coupled functionality tends to break, I don't want my average users messing with these utilities, etc etc).
>
>In short: I recommend making a library with headers and an API that we can both use in our apps, rather then forcing everyone else to use ctest.  That way people can integrate the client-side capability however they see fit...AND the 3 different flavors of Dart clients that we have already can all leverage the same module.
>
>Yes, the base "library" may be not a Java-friendly thing without JNI; maybe a separate Java .jar module can be made that can be a wrapper for this library?
>
>For what it's worth, I'm facing the same challenge in delivering analagous software capability to my users and partner intgrators.  There's no way I can tell them all to "just use my cmdline client, you don't need to integrate in with your own software."  That would dramatically reduce my target market.
>
>That's my $.02, albeit from a very ignorant position, for I have yet to understand this project fully.  But given what I've seen thus far, I can seem a much broader vision then forcing everyone to use ctest.

API's and libraries are much harder to write than applications.   So, you may be on your own, as
we (Kitware) most likely do not have the time to maintain an API/library for ctest.   You could still have
your programs call ctest with command line arguments, and your users would not even need to know
it was there.   I am sure your software uses some sort of installer, and could make sure ctest was
installed in such a way as to not be noticed by your users.  ctest as an executable can run without
CMake, and only requires a single executable.

-Bill