[CMake] on cmake supporting one arch per project (from CMake IR)

[Scott Aron Bloom]

-----Original Message-----
From: CMake [mailto:cmake-bounces at cmake.org] On Behalf Of David Cole via CMake
Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2015 3:11 PM
To: Tamás Kenéz
Cc: cmake at cmake.org
Subject: Re: [CMake] on cmake supporting one arch per project (from CMake IR)

There's nothing wrong with that approach, per se, it simply "doesn't feel natural" to Xcode and Visual Studio users.

Xcode and Visual Studio users building modern apps for multiple targeted platforms (phone, tablet, simulated phone/tablet, desktop,
other) are used to switching the target platform in the IDE somewhere **within a single project file** for non-CMake-generated project files. Forcing them to have multiple Xcode or VS project files, one each for each of their platforms (and configs) feels like a lot of work somehow.

The only thing "wrong" with your approach is you have to spend a lot of time convincing people that CMake is worth it, when all they want to do is open a project file and build. They don't want to have to manage a slew of build trees and project files, when it seems like it ought to be "done already" with what's readily available in the UI...

I totally understand this, and get it. And I still love CMake despite this particular shortcoming. ;-)


David C.
===================
IMO, this is one of the biggest shortcomings of CMake.  I understand the heritage of the CMake world being "make file" based..  I really do.. And I love having a true "out of source" make file generator for when I am doing my Linux based development.  And I don’t mind having a src tree, a build, a build.rel, build.32 and a build.rel.32 etc etc for every possible configuration I need.

However, when on windows, in VS, having at a minimum of two build directories (64 vs 32) is a major downside of CMake.

I understand if its not in the 3.X timeframe, as I would expect it to be a major change.. But IMO, being able to have architecture as well as build types in one VS project (as well as xcode) would be a major improvement for the community.
Scott