[RFC] Build system support in CBMC version 6 about cbmc HOT 4 CLOSED

I support this.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (unless I've missed it) as a potential advantage of the CMake-only approach going forward is the potential for the CMake build system to be restructured in a way that makes CBMC easier to integrate with the build system of another application.

I don't think that's a use-case we support right now, not out of the box at least, but that's something we could look into if we're released from the burden of needing to maintain some symmetry between the two different build systems.

from cbmc.

The dual build system was a technical "fix" to a social issue. One vocal developer insisted they could not use their favourite IDE without CMake. The solution to this was to add CMake files for those that wanted them. Some developers prefer CMake, some prefer Make. Having one build system would be technically simpler but would result in upsetting some people. This is not a purely technical issue.

from cbmc.

1. If we go for CMake-only, then we should first make CMake-based builds support all features that the Makefile-based build has. From the top of my head the shortcomings of CMake-based builds are:
   a. No means to perform a full cleanup (out-of-tree doesn't currently apply to regression tests).
   b. The support for solvers isn't quite as complete.
   c. Doing offline builds is not as straightforward (cf. #6582), which in turn makes Makefile-based builds my preferred option for all packaging work that I do, even though I use CMake-based builds in day-to-day development.
   c. There might still be tests that are only run in Makefile-based builds (to be confirmed).
2. CMake adds another dependency, and there are substantial differences between CMake versions. We'd need to be rather conservative in requiring newer CMake versions for they might not actually be available.
3. I agree with @martin-cs that there are social aspects: why make people learn something new when they have a something that worked for them for many years?

from cbmc.

I am going to close out this issue as out-of-scope for the version 6 release. Feel free to re-open if you wish to push this forward yourself.

from cbmc.