On 2006-10-02 22:29+0100 James Mansion wrote:
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ#Does_CMake_support_.22convenience.22_lib raries.3F The FAQ is misleading - they DO make sense for (all) non-UNIX linkers. What non-UNIX linkers do not have an equivalence to an archive? There is no reason why I cannot compile a load of objects with DLL compilation objects and stick them in a static library for inclusion into DLLs later. I've done it plenty of times in Visual Studio.
Note, I have strong opinions on this subject so I will start with a disclaimer. My perspective is somebody who is fairly new to CMake, Unix-only, relatively experienced with autotools, and familiar with using a convenience library to help build PLplot on Unix with autotools. That said, I don't miss convenience libraries at all! As far as I am concerned, convenience libraries are just one more layer of potential linking confusion. The simple and straightforward alternative of having a list of source files that includes what used to go into the convenience library is absolutely fine with me. I do realize I have a limited perspective, see above disclaimer, but just because convenience libraries are possible on windows platforms (which appears to be the case from your remarks) as well as the Unix platforms that I am familiar with is not enough justification for implementing convenience libraries in CMake. Instead, it should ideally be a carefully weighed CMake developer decision taking all user perspectives (including mine and yours) and developer perspectives (e.g., on the issues of ease of implementation and maintenance) into account. That said, if the FAQ is misleading about the reasons why there are no "convenience" libraries in CMake, then it should be corrected for the real reasons behind the (good, from my perspective) decision. Also, if this thread ends up with the CMake developers implementing convenience libraries, that is fine with me, but I won't be using them for PLplot for the reasons stated. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ _______________________________________________ CMake mailing list [email protected] http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
