Re: [Help-glpk] Help-glpk] [Fwd: CMAKE build environment (and version control)]

[Andrew Makhorin]

> > CMake offers the chance to use the same build files for both Windows
> >  and Posix systems. It can generate Visual Studio projects.
> > 
> > CMake might not be available for all Posix systems for which the GNU
> >  autotools are available.
> 
> I do not consider availability a real problem as CMAKE is easy to port
> to any posix system. However, CMAKE applies a bit different philosophy
> compared to autotools. 
>       * Using autotool the standard shell (plus 'make' plus a compiler)
>         is enough to build a release. You don't need the build system
>         itself. Its essential components are shipped with the release.
>         It - in theory - results in less build time dependency on a
>         posix system but make it impossible to use on non-posix ones.
>         The other downside is that the developments need a _specific
>         version_ of the full toolchain (autoconf, automake, libtool...,
>         and different versions may be incompatible) and you must learn a
>         different syntax for all of them. Finally, I find it quite
>         irritating that there is no clear separation of the source and
>         the generated files. The release tarball is full of obscure
>         generated files, sometimes it is not even clean that a file is
>         simply generated or it is fine tuned later. 
>       * With CMAKE, 'cmake' is necessary to compile and install the code
>         (it will create the Makefile or e.g. the solution/project files
>         for VS). But it is also sufficient for development. A single
>         tool with a single config file format. The source and the
>         generated files are clearly separated, if you do external build
>         (which is highly recommended), then the source tree will be
>         intact during the build process.
> 

I would like to note that glpk is part of the GNU project, so it is
constrained to follow the GNU coding standards, where using GNU
autotools is essential requirement (in particular, it is important for
down-stream maintainers who maintain glpk, for example, for GNU/Linux).

However, if you post me a cmake makefile for glpk, I can include it in
the glpk distribution. I need some template, because all glpk makefiles
are generated automatically on creating the tarball. Thanks.


Andrew Makhorin