On Sun, Sep 11, 2022, 10:30 Junk Trash via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I want to get the opinions of GCC developers regarding adding CMake as a
> build system for GCC. Is it something you would like, something you are
> neutral about, or something you are strongly against?
>
> Thanks for your valuable feedback!
>
> Regards,
>
> JT
>

The high level premise of autotools is to make life harder for the build
system maintainer of a project and easier for a user. This makes sense on
several levels, including portability and familiarity. Cmake, on the other
hand, makes life somewhat easier for the build system maintainer (I
suppose) and harder for the user. This works for a pet project or something
without wide distribution, but I don't personally find it to be a good
design principle for usable and portable software.

Autotools isn't perfect (configure steps are slow, for instance), but it's
robust, reliable, portable, and trivial for an end user.

>