[Chicken-hackers] CMake vs. Autoconf

[Brandon J. Van Every]

John Cowan wrote:

Ivan Raikov scripsit:

  

  Okay, wow, I didn't know there was so much drama involved in this
:-) I assumed that Chicken used Automake/Autoconf, the way God
intended, and since I have extensive experience with those, I didn't
think there would be a problem adding the Debian files to the dist
target. 
    

Brandon is overstating the case.  

This is getting way too confusing.  In fact, while in the shower, I decided it's time to edit all the READMEs to reflect one consistent message.  And all the wiki pages, and also have little blurbs every time someone runs ./configure.  One of the basic obstacles to the ongoing progress of the CMake build, is people's tendency to "naturally" assume everything runs on Autoconf.

Here's the message as I see it.  Felix can correct or add to it, as he sees fit.

- CMake is the future of Chicken.
- CMake is the primary build system on Windows.  The MinGW, Cygwin, and MSVC compilers are well tested.
- CMake is now the only way you can build for the MSVC compiler.
- CMake had some Linux bugs a month ago.  They seem to have been addressed by CMake 2.4.5.  The Linux build should be working fine, but hasn't received as much use and testing as the Autoconf build.
- CMake has been known to build on the Mac, but nobody's been reporting on this recently.
- CMake is the canonical method by which Chicken DISTRIBUTIONS are created.  If you want to modify the canonical distro, you have to work with CMake.
- Brandon will chase complicated CMake problems, if they're important.  Felix isn't a CMake guru yet.

- Autoconf is still supported.   It works well on Linux.  It usually works on Cygwin.  It has often stopped working on MinGW / MSYS.  Autoconf cannot build on MSVC at all.
- Don't know how Autoconf is on the Mac, but it's supposed to work.
- Brandon won't chase complicated Autoconf problems.  Felix might.
- Patches or solutions for Autoconf bugs are certainly welcome.
- Brandon won't accept changes that fix Autoconf but break CMake.  Nor, changes that improve Chicken when built with Autoconf, but not with CMake.  A lot of effort has been put into unifying the 2 builds, so that everyone can eventually migrate to CMake.  Not looking for people to run off in the Autoconf-only direction anymore.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every