Hi Maurice: On 2011-10-21 18:32-0600 Maurice LeBrun wrote:
> On Friday, October 21, 2011 at 10:43:56 (-0700) Alan W. Irwin writes: > > If I don't hear any strong objections to changing the minimum version > > of CMake to 2.8.6 for Windows and 2.8.2 for all other platforms, I > > plan to make this important change to our build system early next week > > (probably Monday). > > Ubuntu 10.04 (LTS) is using 2.8.1, is there a good reason not to make this the > minimum? The usual x.x.0 and x.x.1 troubles. For example, it took a while for the new language support features in the 2.8.x series to settle down. The release announcement for 2.8.2 mentions Fortran but gives no details, but as best I can recall, there was a lot of Fortran support fixups for that version. In connection with the FreeEOS project (much simpler than PLplot but written in Fortran), I have also had trouble with CMake just plain not working correctly for early versions of CMake-2.8.x (either 2.8.0 or 2.8.1) with a RedHat enterprise edition one of my astronomy colleagues was stuck with. The only solution in that case was to download a later version of CMake. My own gut feeling is we probably should not cater specifically to users of LTS and enterprise Linux distributions; after all those distributions are by definition ancient Linux distributions (except for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS when that comes out next April). Those distributions are supported by some company like RedHat, Canonical, or SuSe to a certain extent, and that support is sold by those companies as a lot of effort to backport bug fixes. However, that effort obviously did not happen for CMake itself from my above experience. Such distributions are the result of a market demand of some businesses and research establishments where the management wants to minimize changes on the IT front. Such management presumably would be happy with older versions of PLplot (and CMake) and have zero interest in building later versions of PLplot. I assume, of course, there will be some unhappy clued-up Linux users of those systems who really want some of the latest Linux goodies including a new PLplot version they can build for themselves. But for that type of informed Linux user it probably wouldn't be a huge issue to download and build cmake. I do that all the time myself for each new version of CMake and some of the RC's as well, and it really is a straightforward process. That said, if you have a different gut feeling that you feel strongly about, I would be willing to listen. We could "support" CMake-2.8.1 just like we do now, but that "support" generally consists of asking the user to download a later version of CMake. Is it better to be up-front about that by insisting 2.8.2 is the minimum version that should be used to build PLplot or will some (say the ones not using Fortran) clued-up Linux users who are stuck with LTS or enterprise Linux distros be happy with CMake 2.8.1? I don't know; it is all a matter of speculation and gut feelings. 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); the Time Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The demand for IT networking professionals continues to grow, and the demand for specialized networking skills is growing even more rapidly. Take a complimentary Learning@Cisco Self-Assessment and learn about Cisco certifications, training, and career opportunities. http://p.sf.net/sfu/cisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
