[Project-managers] MSVC++ Support

[Alpár Jüttner]

Hi Ted,

Have you considered using CMAKE for building COIN-OR projects? I think
it would be a perfect substitute for the current autotool based build
environment + MSVC project files currently used by COIN-OR.

It generally much easier to setup, maintain and use than an autotool
build environment (it's enough to learn a single config file format and
use single tool). It is cross platform, so it can create UNIX or MSVC
makefiles, as well as MSVC project files automatically. (It also have
support for MinGW, MSYS, Borland, Watcom, Eclipse etc, and can generate
rpm, deb packages and .exe installers with CPACK+NSIS)

Of course, it is far from being perfect, but we have used it in a couple
of cross platform (Linux+Windows) projects and we are quite happy with
it.

The LEMON project (https://projects.coin-or.org/LEMON) provides both
autotool and CMAKE based build envs, so you can have a try with CMAKE
and can compare it to autotools.

Here is some basic guide on how to build LEMON with CMAKE (on Windows):
http://lemon.cs.elte.hu/trac/lemon/wiki/InstallCmake

Regards,
Alpar

On Tue, 2009-05-12 at 17:30 +1000, Ted Ralphs wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> A while back, the TLC had decided that we should standardize on
> providing project files only for MSVC++ version 8, even though the
> latest version was 9. This was decided because the version 8 compiler
> was freely available and the converter seemed to work well.
> Maintaining two sets of project files was not seen as a good idea. In
> the meantime, Microsoft has discontinued support and distribution of
> MSVC++ Express Version 8 and has made MSVC++ Express Version 9
> available instead. JP Fasano and I together have now created version 9
> project files for most projects and I have also created a MSVC++
> solution for CoinAll. So it looks like our decision not to switch to
> version 9 has been more or less overcome by events now and it will
> make the most sense to move forward supporting version 9. Let me know
> if you have any questions or problems with this.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ted