Yes, unfortunately I've not had time to split out parts of #196 or fix it
up to merge it as is. I think for the bug Jon Binney is referring to is
particularly heinous and we should try to get a short term fix in place. We
can discuss that on the catkin_tools issue referenced above.

I'll just reiterate that catkin_tools is still in beta (long time I know),
and that there are still systemic issues which need to be addressed before
I'd be willing to recommend it over catkin_make_isolated. Those are
captured in https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/issues/90. As Jonathan
mentioned, many things are addressed in his pr #196, but I've yet to find a
large enough block of time to get it through to master.

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 6:18 AM, Jonathan Bohren via ros-users <
ros-users@lists.ros.org> wrote:

> Jon,
>
> Yeah, there are a numerous bugs and missing features in catkin_tools which
> have been resolved in this PR:
> https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/pull/196
>
> Unfortunately, I haven't had time to work on the ROS build tools recently
> due to other responsibilities, and before that PR can be merged, there are
> a few small outstanding issues that need to be resolved. I don't know when
> I'll have time to fix these issues so that the PR can be merged, since they
> are not critical to my own work.
>
> best,
> -j
>
> On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 4:37 AM Jon Binney via ros-users <
> ros-users@lists.ros.org> wrote:
>
>> Jonathan, thanks for taking the time to write an awesome tool. The
>> feature set is great.
>>
>> I'd like to point out, though, that a lot of people seem to have adopted
>> catkin tools already, even though it is still in a fairly "beta" state.
>> There's a list of some of the problems here:
>> https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/issues/90
>>
>> The most serious bug that I run into regularly is that catkin tools can
>> create a corrupted ROS_PACKAGE_PATH, causing ROS commands to fail to find
>> some packages that you compiled:
>> https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/issues/78
>>
>> This happens randomly (it is a concurrency issue with running multiple
>> catkin processes with the same devel space). I'd suggest that people stick
>> with catkin_make for now unless they have a good understanding of the
>> limitations and bugs in catkin tools.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 3:56 AM, Jit Ray Chowdhury via ros-users <
>> ros-users@lists.ros.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I checked it out, and it is awesome. I still miss autocompletion of
>>> package names catking build pkg_name...(auto_complete)
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Jit Ray Chowdhury
>>> Co-Founder | AuRo Robotics | www.aurobots.com
>>> (+91) 98315-46599 / 91432-99599 | www.jitrc.com
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 10:26 PM, Jonathan Bohren <
>>> jonathan.bohren@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> All,
>>>>
>>>> This is what they built: http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/
>>>>
>>>> Quick summary:
>>>> - `catkin_tools` is an improved toolchain for building catkin workspaces
>>>> - this toolchain is ready for beta testing, and we want your feedback
>>>> - the CLI command is simply called `catkin`
>>>> - the build sub-command is `catkin build`
>>>> - it builds packages with isolated build directories (no CMake
>>>> crosstalk)
>>>> - it builds packages in parallel
>>>> - it builds "pure" CMake packages that don't use Catkin macros
>>>> - it lets you build selected packages in a workspace
>>>> - it lets you build packages without cd'ing to the workspace root
>>>> - it needs to be tested more before being recommended over `catkin_make`
>>>> - the documentation for all the additional features can be found here:
>>>> http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/
>>>>
>>>> Install it now (from the ROS debian repos):
>>>> sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools
>>>>
>>>> Or install it now (from PIP):
>>>> sudo pip install -U catkin_tools
>>>>
>>>> Take a look at the cheat sheet:
>>>> http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/en/latest/cheat_sheet.html
>>>>
>>>> Give it a try and report issues or feature requests here:
>>>> https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/issues
>>>>
>>>> For some background and the relationship to the current top-level
>>>> `catkin_make` command:
>>>>
>>>> http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/en/latest/mechanics.html#understanding-the-build-process
>>>>
>>>> Many thanks to Contributors:
>>>> William Woodall
>>>> Jonathan Bohren
>>>> Nikolaus Demmel
>>>> Dave Coleman
>>>> Felix Ruess
>>>> Dirk Thomas
>>>> Kartik Mohta
>>>> Thibault Kruse
>>>> Ian McMahon
>>>> Kei Okada
>>>>
>>>> Those of us who've put time into this project over the last year hope
>>>> that `catkin build` makes your lives less stressful and helps you build
>>>> robotic systems faster.
>>>>
>>>> best,
>>>> catkin_tools contributors
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> ros-users mailing list
>>>> ros-users@lists.ros.org
>>>> http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> ros-users@lists.ros.org
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>>>
>>>
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>
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>


-- 
William Woodall
ROS Development Team
william@osrfoundation.org
http://wjwwood.io/