[CMake] CPack 101

[David Cole]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 7:58 AM, Mike McQuaid <mike at mikemcquaid.com> wrote:

> On 23 December 2010 12:43, David Cole <david.cole at kitware.com> wrote:
> > Neither do we:
> > http://public.kitware.com/Bug/view.php?id=10067
>
> > As always, as developers we find ourselves constantly working to improve
> > what we have: fixing bugs, implementing new features, answering questions
> on
> > the mailing list, blogging/communicating about it, adding examples and
> > suggestions to the Wiki.
> >
> > The struggle is reserving enough time to contribute to documentation when
> > there are always "real" (functional) bugs to be fixed. Perpetual
> questions:
> > what's "enough" documentation?, how do we make sure people can find it
> > easily?, how do we name this better (but still preserve the existing
> names
> > for people already using it / backwards compatibility)?
>
> > I make no excuses here: yes, the CPack and CTest documentation are
> lacking /
> > lagging behind the CMake documentation. However, it will take a very real
> > and concerted and time-consuming effort to improve the situation. With
> the
> > open source nature of the project, we have to be willing to accept the
> > organic growth that occurs in the code base: the documentation will be
> the
> > same: it will improve gradually, over time, as contributors are able to
> > improve it.
>
> I think the main problem is that you make it very hard for people to
> contribute. KDE and Homebrew (two other open-source projects I've
> written a lot of code for over the years) make this very easy.
>
>
How do we make it very hard? What about KDE and Homebrew make this very
easy? Specifics, please.

Kitware is great, you clearly write good code and have done a great
> job creating CMake and CPack. They are fantastic tools. However, I
> think until you are more encouraging of external developers you will
> struggle to make huge improvements to CMake.
>

Thank you. Even with more external developers, I think we'll struggle --
that would just be a different sort of struggle.



> > Until then, at least the mailing list has a reasonable response rate and,
> it
> > seems, sufficient participation from knowledgeable folks willing to pitch
> in
> > and answer. So... if you're confused about something, please ask here.
> > We (I hope I speak for all CMake devs, here) take no offense. We welcome
> > discussion, always.
>
> The mailing list is OK but most people don't want to sign up to a
> mailing list and receive lots of emails that have nothing to do with
> them. I'm only signed up because I want to try and get some patches
> merged and was told that I should discuss things here rather than the
> bugtracker.
>
> I hope I don't cause any offense here either. I'm passionate about
> CMake because I like the tool and want to make it better.
>
>
Again, let me stress, no offense taken. There is no way you can offend me,
unless you start calling me names for no reason. Reasonable discussion
always welcome.

Thx,
David



> --
> Mike McQuaid
> http://mikemcquaid.com
>
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