[Python-Dev] Evaluated cmake as an autoconf replacement

[Ondrej Certik]

Hi,

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Jeffrey Yasskin <jyasskin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've heard some good things about cmake — LLVM, googletest, and Boost
> are all looking at switching to it — so I wanted to see if we could
> simplify our autoconf+makefile system by using it. The biggest wins I
> see from going to cmake are:
>  1. It can autogenerate the Visual Studio project files instead of
> needing them to be maintained separately
>  2. It lets you write functions and modules without understanding
> autoconf's mix of shell and M4.
>  3. Its generated Makefiles track header dependencies accurately so we
> might be able to add private headers efficiently.

I am switching to cmake with all my python projects, as it is rock
solid, supports building in parallel (if I have some C++ and Cython
extensions), and the configure part works well.

The only disadvantage that I can see is that one has to learn a new
syntax, which is not Python. But on the other hand, at least it forces
one to really just use cmake to write build scripts in a standard way,
while scons and other Python solutions imho encourage to write full
Python programs, which imho is a disadvantage for the build system, as
then every build system is nonstandard.

Ondrej