Strategy for choosing a build system

[Kurt Pfeifle]

On Friday 03 February 2006 17:15, David Faure wrote:
> It seems to me that the general consensus is that
> - cmake is much more mature at this point
> - bksys will give a much nicer solution in the end
> (most KDE developers prefer an object-oriented syntax, and an all-in-one 
> solution over generating Makefiles).
> 
> So it's a choice between "the solution that delivers the fastest"
> and "the nicest solution which we have to wait a bit more for, but which we'll
> be happy to use for years to come".

From my (very limited) understanding, there may be another criterion
to be added to this short characterization, that is the one describing
"who maintains it?". So the (current) choice is between:

 * "the solution that delivers the fastest and is maintained outside of
    KDE, but with KDE support in mind"
 * "the nicest solution which we have to wait a bit more for, but which 
    we'll be happy to use for years to come, and which a group of KDE
    hackers will have to maintain (also for years to come) all on their 
    own, because in effect is a fork from an outside-of-KDE build system
    whose maintainers are not interested in supporting KDE"

(The second choice may be OK (or even the best one) too in the end!)

What I am interested to know right now is this. Assuming someone 
completely new to KDE development (could be a new OSS developer, or an
ISV/company trying to create their product on the KDE platform):

  * which one is easier to learn and maintain as build system 
    for "independent" KDE apps: scons/bksys or cmake?

[....]

> To be fair I think we can afford to wait a few more weeks before deciding.

Sounds very reasonable.

Cheers,
Kurt