[Qt5-feedback] Qt5's qmake

[Peter Kümmel]

On 12.05.2011 22:21, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> On Thursday, 12 de May de 2011 14:38:37 Ian Monroe wrote:
>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 14:15, Doug Schaefer<cdtdoug at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Ian Monroe<ian at monroe.nu>  wrote:
>>>> So whatever qmake+1 is, it shouldn't let configuration be an
>>>> afterthought. And I hope we just use cmake.
>>>
>>> +1 for cmake. It's out there, it's customizable, and if needed, we
>>> should be able to get changes upstream. I don't think it's a good
>>> thing people have to learn yet another build tool. I'd rather they
>>> focus on making great apps with Qt.
>>
>> The fact that cmake is open to changes can't be emphasized too much.
>
> They are indeed open for changes. We discussed with them a replacement for
> qmake about a year and a half ago, but it never went anywhere. Still, Kitware
> was very responsive to most of our concerns, about the needs of the IDE to
> control the project file, the device deployment and packaging, etc.
>
> I think there's a blog on Labs that listed what our requirements were.
>
> However, one thing they were not open for change is the language.
>

I would design the wished language on paper with all the needed features,
and starting the implementation on base of a cmake-fork. Then you would have
all the existing cmake features, which could step-by-step be migrated to
your new build tool language. This way you get very fast a running system.

Adding a new script language to cmake isn't that hard, I know about three
experimental bindings, QtScript, Lua, and AngleScript. Writing a wrapper to
get rid of the cmake function names is also simple.

And assuming you have really man-power/budget available for this job
(qmake is 'Done') it would take only some months to replace qmake.

And maybe there is interest to bring the changes upstream.

Peter