[Bf-committers] Removing Build Systems

[joe]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 3:56 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I do realize the Make system is hard to maintain. It seems the
> requirements for building Blender with new rna & python tricks became
> more and more complex, which is why you lost so much time on adding
> support in Make probably?
>
> On the other hand, it's the system I like best simply because it works
> so well. My productivity and coding work depends a lot on a pleasant
> well configured and fast make system. Scons could not replace it on
> that level for me, and although I wouldn't mind giving Cmake a try,
> it's a valid statement to require it to work just as good, right?

I think scons is as powerful as the makefiles, though it's not as fast
(however if you have enough RAM to always maintain a good OS disk
cache it's pretty fast).  IIRC, cmake should be as fast and as
powerful, but depends on how we have it set up.

>
> I don't understand the special attention for Cmake really, afaik only
> one person who works on 2.5 actually uses it (Nicholas), and he
> maintains it as well. Same goes for MSVC, it's being maintained by
> Andrea, and for as long she does so, we should be happy with it.
>

CMake has a lot of potential, which is why it's being given so much
attention.  It can replace both the old makefiles and also generate
msvc project files.  It's also supposed to reasonably fast, I think.

> There's also a difference between "compilers" and "developers". Getting
> a reliable compiled Blender from our svn is important, but to drop a
> system that assists developing so well is quite a big thing...
>
> I also don't fully grasp the proposal; is it about bringing 4 systems
> back 2? Or is it because 'make' is too complex to maintain? If it's the
> first, then obviously we should stick to make, it's the system in use
> by one of the most active committers in 2.5... ;)
>
> -Ton-

At the moment we have 3 mainstream systems; the older makefiles, scons
and cmake.  I imagine getting all three to work was a big pain.  Using
just cmake and scons, we actually have similar capabilities (cmake can
generate both makefiles and project files) at a lower maintainance
cost.  Or that's the thoery, anyway, no idea how it works out in
practice. :)

Joe