Getting ecm files from the ECM package

[Mirko Boehm]

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On 11/01/2013 06:46 PM, Nicolás Alvarez wrote:
>>> and so forth. That would be a real breakthrough. It is related to the
>>> >> approach taken by Maven and others. All it takes is a built-in way for
>>> >> CMake to download the find_modules into a cache location and update them
>>> >> when needed, or on request.
>> >
>> > Yes, that's definitely something we've been missing for a long time compared
>> > to the java crowd who massively use Maven. It is an *excellent* feature, and
>> > would solve this kind of headaches we have with the build system.
> I don't know how to even begin arguing against this, because if you
> don't see how wrong it is to download stuff during compilation, I
> don't know what arguments would help.
> 
> I actively avoid any build system that automatically downloads
> dependencies. In fact, I avoid any tool that automatically downloads
> and installs software except for my distro's package manager and
> kdesrc-build. That means no easy_install, pip, rubygems, npm, maven,
> or whatever NIH package manager the $language community invented now.
> 
> Maven is a disgusting monstrosity used by the Java crowd where
> backwards compatibility rarely exists, and the approach to make things
> not break is to make packages depend on exact versions of dependencies
> and download them automatically from who-knows-where. And then the
> same craziness gets copied or reinvented for other languages too.
> 
> "You don’t want a build tool which automatically downloads unresolved
> dependencies before cleaning out your build output directories. You
> don’t want a build tool which automatically downloads unresolved
> dependencies, PERIOD! Automatically downloading unresolved
> dependencies makes your build process nondeterministic!" --
> http://kent.spillner.org/blog/work/2009/11/14/java-build-tools.html
> 
> I'm also surprised at "Almost everybody has internet access for build
> machines". Is there *any* Linux distro where that's the case??

Pretty strong language. Not much proof. Do you *know* how Red Hat or SuSE build their packages? 

To me, "build systems should not download anything" sounds like a movie from the 80ies. I haven't heard much in terms of pro and con arguments in this discussio, just "how dare you". I have been in extensive discussions about this topic, and both sides have good arguments. The truth is somewhere in the middle, because it depends on your situation. For example, from a developers point of view, what is the difference between me pulling the ECM repo and CMake doing it automatically? A brain? 

In my opinion, a central repository of community maintained find module packages has a chance of making a real difference. We have been debating the deployment problem of find modules for a long time, and obviously the solutions we currently have do not make everybody happy. 

Cheers, 

Mirko.
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