Re: Feedback from GSL folks on libflame 4.0

["Robert G. Brown" <rgb@phy.duke.edu>]

On Fri, 19 Feb 2010, Gerard Jungman wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 13:41 -0500, Robert G. Brown wrote:
>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010, Brian Gough wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for using autoconf. I think it is a good thing.
>>
>> Yeah, I don't really think of them as optional these days.  They are far
>> from perfect and often a PITA, but what they do is necessary.
>
> You guys are missing the point. The question is not
> "autotools or nothing" but "autotools or cmake".

Sure, or (God help us) aimk or other ancient solutions to the problem.
But is cmake any better?  When I tried it last -- some years ago, I
admit -- it wasn't, at least not for me.  If you build a package
intended to go into many different distros (ones with toplevel
referees), they all but require autotools.  Will they accept cmake
instead?

Ultimately, it comes down to standard practice.  Nearly every packaged
application in nearly every linuxoid or BSDish OS uses GBT.  Everybody
knows to cd into the toplevel directory, run ./configure --whatever,
make, and you're done.  Tools like glade build a GBT project directory
for you whether you like it or not.  I tried fighting this for years
more because the documentation still pretty much sucks so you have to
work quite hard to figure out how to actually use the tools and move
past simple templates, but once you get a COMPLEX template set up, sheer
inertia keeps you there.

So, will Debian accept a cmake packaging?  Fedora?  I really don't know,
but when I looked at the Fedora packaging requirements and worked on
getting a package into Debian, the nominal rules called for GBT and
there was a lot of pressure to stick with them because everybody knows
how to build with them.

    rgb

>
> --
> G. Jungman
>
>

Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu