Re: Premake vs. CMake

["Brandon Van Every" <bvanevery@...>]

On Feb 2, 2008 6:14 PM, Wesley Smith <wesley.hoke@gmail.com> wrote:
> > CMake has ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND which allows you to do anything.  If you
> > want to knock yourself out with Lua or Python or Perl or Ruby
> > scripting, you can.  I don't think "in a more unified fashion" is a
> > compelling benefit.
>
> For me it is.  I want all of the dynamically interpreted stuff related
> to my app in one language so I can build a coherent and holistic
> approach to application programming.  I'm interested in where the
> boundaries between the build system and the app itself blur.  Having a
> build system in autoconf or CMake while the runtime environment of the
> app is in Lua does jive well with that goal.  This may seem like an
> odd thing to want to do, but I have my reasons which I won't go into
> right now.  My end goal is to have every step of the app from build
> structure to app preferences to runtime configuration and so one
> expressed as Lua scripts.

I understand the sentiment.  In fact, I've contemplated designing a 3D
oriented language that also integrates a build system, so that the
system interface is standard and untyped shell scripts are expunged
from development.  My experience is the latter are a nightmare and the
source of many unproductive programming hours.  But chasing
cross-platform build systems at the industrial scale is a huge support
burden.  Kitware is currently doing that job well, and I don't know
that I want it.  I subscribed to the Lua mailing list to temper my
desire to embark on a fool's errand.  Lua is more popular than
anything I'm going to write from scratch, and more likely to make me
money.  I've bled myself out for $0 R&D in the past, so this is a real
concern.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every