Re: Multi-platform build system

[Óscar Fuentes]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

> Óscar Fuentes <address@hidden> writes:
>> Time ago I volunteered to write a CMake [1] build spec for Emacs. It
>> was considered unnecessary by the people who does most of the work
>> on the current build systems. I will have some free time (sigh) on
>> the next months, so I reiterate the offer in case anyone changed his
>> mind.
>
> If this were in the repo, would it become a maintenance burden once
> you don't have time to do so yourself?  Obviously the Emacs build
> process is relatively complex, so presumably maintenance would require
> more than updating lists of files occasionally.
>
> Of course, maybe it would be _less_ of a burden than maintaining the
> current scripts etc...

Experience shows that a cmake spec usually is a fraction of the length
of the equivalent autoconf+automake/Makefile spec,
line-wise. Maintenance work is proportionally reduced. It's easier to
add new features, too.

> (presuming the additional dependency on cmake is acceptable)

Yep, that was the inconvenience that people voiced the last time. The
cmake build would work everywhere as long as cmake is present but now,
like then, I'm thinking mostly on the Windows users, who already have to
install other software besides the compiler for building Emacs. You'll
remove the GnuWin32 dependency and replace it with cmake. The gain is,
precisely, on the simplification of maintenance and the added value of
the multiple features cmake offers [1]. The people who maintains the
Windows scripts said that maintaining those is no problem, so my
proposal was dumped.

[1]: http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/Really_Cool_CMake_Features (that's not a
complete list)