[CMake] Suggestion for CMake platform/compiler detection

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2006-11-16 13:00-0800 Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> Bill Hoffman wrote:
>> The problem with the shell, is that you can run cmake, then run make from 
>> a different shell....
>> For the most part that works on unix.   zsh, bash, sh, csh basically work 
>> the same.   The trouble shows up
>> on windows. 
>
> Yep, open source on Windows is nothing but TROUBLE.  It doesn't get the 
> testing, consistency, or packaging of the Linux universe.  Really only the 
> Cygwin stuff is reliable for prime time, and with that you get shafted with 
> the GPL, typically.

The subscribers to this mailing list are a mixture of windows and Linux
developers who normally get along wonderfully well.  We each have different
belief systems though, so could you please turn down the off-topic rhetoric
that is offensive to one side?

There is nothing wrong with saying Cygwin has a lot of GPLed packages (like
Linux itself), but to go beyond that with your opinion about the GPL is
off-topic.

I have no windows experience so I try not to say much about it, but from
what the PLplot windows developers tell me there are problems in building
and finding the appropriate versions of all libraries required by PLplot
(and presumably other Linux software as well which tends like PLplot to use
a wide variety of libraries).  So I will go along with your first sentence
quoted above to that limited extent.  I presume though that as cmake becomes
more ubiquitous in the Linux world (and from all I can tell that is
happening fast) there will be a concerted effort to port more of our useful
libraries to windows, and the problem of library availability on windows for
software that originated on the Linux platform should be greatly reduced in
consequence.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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