Fwd: [CMake] Adding cross-compiler support to CMake ... (fwd)

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Arjen Markus wrote:
>> Arjen Markus wrote:
>>     
>
>   
>>> Don't forget all those PCs with Windows installed but no Cygwin or
>>> MingW: they simply can not use the configure scripts. Of course, one
>>> can require these users to install Cygwin or MingW, but what is that
>>> different from installing CMake?
>>>
>>>       
>> The level of pain.  Cygwin is easy.  It just takes a lot more MB of
>> downloads to have a working system, than to grab CMake.  Or, uh, you
>> can  grab the CMake that's in Cygwin.  :-)
>>
>>     
>
> Hm, I was thinking more of the end-users than developers :).
>   

Only Unix people think that "end users" run ./configure scripts or 
CMake.  In the Windows world, if you're running a compiler, you're a 
developer.  You may be a developer who wants a painless build, but 
you're still a developer.  The answer for an end user is CPack, not 
CMake.  Even for most Unix developers, the answer is a modern packaging 
system.  Only weenies want to sit around building huge stacks of 
libraries all day long.

>> MinGW / MSYS has become *awful* if you're trying to get Autoconf going.
>>   I spent an entire day on it recently and almost gave up.  The only
>> thing  that saved my ass was a rogue 3rd party project called
>> mingw-install.   http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-install  It
>> *nukes* the whole MSYS  mess and puts in a bunch of stuff that actually
>> works, with the most  current versions of Autoconf and whatnot.
>>     
>
> Thanks for the tip! I have never been able to grasp the information
> on the home page - what packages I need etc. A simple receipe would
> have done: "if you are a typical user/developer, get this and this."
>   

Being similarly befuddled, I read the archives about this.  It seems 
that at least one of the MSYS leads simply doesn't care, and won't be 
lifting fingers for Autoconf.  Which boggles me, since I always thought 
the point of MSYS was to be able to run Autoconf, but I guess that's not 
so.  I don't know what people are doing with MSYS if not using it to 
build GNU-ish stuff.  Pretty little shell?  Geez, who cares?  The MSYS 
guys definitely don't think they're supposed to be a fullblown 
Unix-under-Windows like Cygwin, they think they're supposed to be a 
Minimal SYStem.  They won't do anything which pulls them in the 
direction of being like Cygwin.  So, what *do* they want to do?  I think 
there's a problem of cultural definition afoot.  Maybe if I lurked on 
their mailing list long enough, I'd figure it out and be capable of 
uttering the right magic words.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every

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