[Trilinos-Users] Updates on Trilinos+CMake

Sun Sep 28 21:05:56 MDT 2008

Ali,

I can't make any promises here but it is possible that full Cmake support for all Trilinos packages could be released with a full release of Trilinos as early as March 2009.

The main issues holding up Cmake support in Trilinos are the following:

1) Determining the best (or at least a very good) way to deal the complexities of Trilinos package interdependencies while maintaining a balance between top level control and package autonomy:  As Trilinos continues to grow, this is becoming a more and more dominant issue.

2) Eliminating gratuitous duplication to speed assimilation and simplify maintenance:  Here we are writing a lot of Cmake macros and functions to standardize common constructs and adapting to a parallel library.

3) Grunt work (transitioning a lot autotool-specified libraries, tests, examples, and specifications for running tests and examples):  Currently, there are 782 Makefile.am files in all of Trilinos and many of these files have fairly complex logic that will need to be translated over to CMakeLists.txt files.  Switching to Cmake will not be a trivial task and we must make sure the switch is worth it before we jump.

4) Learning a new build system:  Cmake scripting is a little strange and not very elegant in many ways.  It will take people some time and effort to get used to using Cmake and writing CMakeLists.txt files.

So far I can say that I am quite happy with how the Trilinos/Cmake evaluation is going but we still have some important issues to work out before we can Cmakify all of Trilinos.

Cheers,

- Ross

---------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Roscoe A. Bartlett
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Trilinos Software Engineering Technologies and Integration Lead
Sandia National Laboratories
Phone: (505) 275-6147

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ali - [mailto:saveez at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 5:16 PM
> To: Bartlett, Roscoe A; trilinos-users at software.sandia.gov
> Subject: RE: [Trilinos-Users] Updates on Trilinos+CMake
>
>
> Ross,
>
> Many thanks for the information. I have been working with
> CMake for quite a long time, and one may find me biased to
> answer your questions. So, I quote Kevin Long's Sundance FAQ
> about autotools:
>
> 'Why do you use the Autotools for configuration?
>
> 'I detest the autotools -- as a developer, I find them
> extremely cumbersome to work with, and as a user I find them
> finicky and near-impossible to debug when things go wrong --
> but for better or worse they are the de facto standard for
> configuring software on Unix-like systems. In particular,
> they are used by Trilinos. Because Sundance is built on top
> of Trilinos, using a common configuration system was a
> logical choice. My apologies; I don't like it either.'
>
> A couple of moths ago I ported Trilinos+Sundance to MinGW
> which is currently the only best option for native windows
> binaries and I did suffer the same symptoms described by
> Kevin. Personally I find the use of CMake in Trilinos to to offer:
>
> (1) Easy portability and native binaries.
>
> (2) Opening up the possibility of *automatically* wrapping
> c/c++ code to languages supported by SWIG. This option is
> still experimental, but we have verified it by wrapping the
> huge Insight Toolkit library into python and java
> (www.itk.org, code.google.com/p/wrapitk/).
>
> (3) The choice of working under the favourite IDE.
>
> (4) Practical debugging.
>
> Would you estimate that full support of CMake will not be
> available until September 2009? Could you describe the main
> problems slowing down the CMake progress?
>
>
> -Ali
>
> >
> > Hello Ali,
> >
> > There is some support for Cmake in Trilinos 9.0 but it is
> limited to just the packages Teuchos and Epetra for the most part.
> >
> > We may provide full support for Cmake in the next major
> release of Trilinos and indeed the Cmake system in that case
> would completely replace the current autotools-based system
> down the line.
> >
> > We are currently conducting a detailed evaluation of how
> use and adapt Cmake for use as the Trilinos build system and
> testing infrastructure.  We will publish a technical report
> about the outcome of the evaluation of Trilinos/Cmake in the
> coming months.
> >
> > Would Cmake support be a significant advantage for you and
> other Trilinos users?  If so, can you describe why Trilinos
> switching to Cmake would make your work easier and/or more productive?
> >
> > Would the Trilinos user community welcome Trilinos totally
> switching to Cmake and dropping the current autotools-based
> system in the next major release of Trilinos?
> >
> > We are trying to determine what route to go and we are
> interested in what the general Trilinos user community thinks
> about this issue.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > - Ross
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------
> > Dr. Roscoe A. Bartlett
> > Senior Member of the Technical Staff
> > Trilinos Software Engineering Technologies and Integration
> Lead Sandia
> > National Laboratories
> > Phone: (505) 275-6147
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: trilinos-users-bounces at software.sandia.gov
> >> [mailto:trilinos-users-bounces at software.sandia.gov] On
> Behalf Of Ali
> >> -
> >> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 10:20 AM
> >> To: trilinos-users at software.sandia.gov
> >> Subject: [Trilinos-Users] Updates on Trilinos+CMake
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Could someone provide an update for the use of CMake in
> Trilinos? I
> >> remember the support was supposed to be available this October, is
> >> this plan still on?
> >>
> >>
> >> -Ali
> >> _________________________________________________________________
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> >>
> >
>
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