[CMake] Re: Mac installation and cultural issues

[Brandon Van Every]

On Dec 22, 2007 6:20 PM, Brandon Van Every <bvanevery at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In that world view, you'd add "first run invokes path configuration"
> because it gives native MacOS bigots a warm squishy feeling.  Then
> they're singing the praises of CMake instead of bitching and moaning
> about it.
>
> The first invocation doesn't have to be through a GUI either.  ITon
> the command line, either from CMake's installation directory or from
> an absolute path.

Damn this computer + GMail web interface!  Somehow they consipre to
send messages prematurely.  That and Vista hard freezes every 3 days
when I use the internet.  Last occurence was 20 minutes ago.  What a
POS.  Anyways...

The first invocation doesn't have to be through a GUI either.  It
could be invoked on the command line, either from CMake's installation
directory, or another directory using an absolute or relative path.
The invoker could be a human being or a script.  CMake could check a
.path_configured file or some such in its installation directory to
determine whether it has ever been configured.  When invoked on the
command line, it is best to issue a warning only.  Nobody's looking
for a forced interruption; the user might know exactly what they're
doing and be deliberately using an absolute path.  .path_configured
doesn't mean that CMake is in a path.  It means that the user has
specified, either with an installer, a GUI interaction, or a command
line option, that CMake is or isn't to be placed in some path.  I do
keep several hermetically sealed build environments on my Windows box,
so it's perfectly reasonable not to have CMake in any path.
Especially when I may have 3 versions of CMake on my system: the
current release version, the latest CVS version, and a modified CVS
version if I'm comparing against some Kitware patch.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every