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by bch 4514 days ago
CMake started for needing a suitable build system for a medical visualization application[0][1] that Kitware was working on, iiuc. How they could be using Tcl (an established, purpose built embeddable scripting/control language) in the Insight project, come to the conclusion they need a custom build system, and then when it comes to a control language decide to roll their own is a mystery to me, and a dropped ball, as far as I'm concerned.

I like cmake, and used to use it exclusively, but after running into so many issues with their homebrew scripting/configuration language, I've mostly moved on. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up coming back, and I'd encourage everybody to give it a shot (the ease of typical simple Makefile generation, but with extra muscle), but the omission of Tcl as a control/config tool has always baffled me.

  [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMake#History
  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight_Segmentation_and_Registration_Toolkit
edit: formatting