[CMake] CMake with Lua Experiment

[Brandon Van Every]

On Nov 29, 2007 2:18 AM, Jesper Eskilson <jesper at eskilson.se> wrote:
>
> Brandon Van Every wrote:
> > On Nov 28, 2007 2:47 AM, Pau Garcia i Quiles <pgquiles at elpauer.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Talking about Ruby, could someone please paste his wishlist about
> >> variable scoping for CMake? (ie what would you like to add: local
> >> variables which die when you exit the loop, file-scoped variables,
> >> directory-scoped variables, project-scoped variables, what?). It's
> >> quite difficult to fix a problem we have not properly defined (at
> >> least, I have never seen a proper wishlist about this).
> >
> > I just want scope, i.e. I don't want global variable names crapping
> > all over each other.  I don't care about any fancy dancy Computer
> > Science ways of adding extra programmatic features.  Other people may
> > see heavy duty OO or tweaky FP constructs as beneficial for their
> > build system.  At present I don't.
>
> No offense, but you're not really in a position to determine what
> constructs are benefitial for people in their own build systems.

I'm saying any reasonable implementation of scope would satisfy me at
present.  We all have our points of view about how important various
things are.  Alexander has gone on record as anti-complexity; he
Considers Programming Harmful in a build system.  I don't agree with
him; I figure if I need scope today, perhaps I'll need OO or FP 5
years from now.  People in the computer industry have a history saying
"newfangled stuff" isn't needed, and people are always proven to be
partly wrong.  I don't have reactionary views about using fullblown
programming languages in build systems.  I don't feel threatened by
them.  I do think that people can run away with their abstractions and
turn their build system into a PITA.  But I also think that large
scale open source projects that *I* have to deal with, have some
cultural safeguards against that.  I'm not worried about being
tortured by someone else's horrible build system... and if it's really
that bad, I have a consulting opportunity to write something better.

I'm very conscious of the marketing value of fullblown programming
languages.  People think they need them, whether they need them or
not.  I may only want some very basic scope out of Lua, but I'd be
quite happy if the world flocked to CMake for other Lua bells and
whistles.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every