[Development] Future of QBS

[Christian Gagneraud]

On 14 October 2017 at 04:22, Jean-Michaël Celerier
<jeanmichael.celerier at gmail.com> wrote:
>> nobody is going to port Qt to CMake (if you disagree start a new thread)
>
> https://plus.google.com/+AaronSeigo/posts/fWAM9cJggc8

I would resume this post as "I love CMake, CMake is the only way.
You're all wrong."
This post doesn't explain anything, doesn't gives any analysis, no
comparison, no argument whatsoever, nothing.

How many people had the same reaction when clang started?
Nowadays, clang is actually far superior to gcc, it brought tooling
like we would never have dared to dream of .

Same goes with SVN vs git, now (almost) everyone have given up with SVN.
SVN was "CVS in better", git is a completely different approach to
SCM, SVN is now a zombie.

"Not reinventing the wheel" has to be balanced with "innovation".

IMHO, Qbs' great potential is the "completely new approach".
Qbs would be a failed attempt if it was "CMake&autohell in better".

I think it's worth thinking about that, and be critical instead of
being blind nay-sayer.

>> a complete CMake build for Qt was already contributed upstream (quite some
>> time ago) .. and rejected ..

It would be interesting to know why. Oswald said "we (...) are
strongly biased against a
cmake-based solution", but didn't give any reason/justification (Or I
missed it).

Did this CMake port cover all the features provided by qmake?
Did this CMake port provide all the configuration needed by Qt, on all
the supported platform?
Could the Qt CI switch to CMake then?

And what about this "Nominating Kevin Funk for Maintainer qtbase/Build
Systems/CMake" thread?
Will Kevin Funk (aka. "The CMake guy" according to Sergio) be fair
when it comes to evaluating  new build systems for Qt? or is it an
hijack attempt, an insider infiltration?
Or is it pure timing coincidence, and Kevin Funk is actually a "build
system*s* guy"?

I have no power of decision, so i will accept any.

Nonetheless, I think it would be a mistake to choose a build system
over the other because "I love Xyz, Xyz is the only way. You're all
wrong."

Who knows, maybe the answer to "Which new build system for Qt" could
be neither CMake, neither Qbs.

My 2 cents,
Chris