[ros-users] resolving open REP-0122 issues

[Dirk Thomas]

On 26.07.2012 04:40, Thibault Kruse wrote:
>
> It seems the effort of migrating from rosbuild to catkin is only measured in terms of
> what it would need for each project to build again, not in terms of how much rework
> the wiki, indexer and other documentation would need as a consequence.
>

I would like to make a general statement (without implying that we should or should not do something specific mentioned in the earlier discussion!).

We should not be fixed with our ideas and future concepts by what currently exists or how it is currently done.
We should try to come up with goals what we think are the "right" way of doing it.
Of course after that we need to consider how to get there from the current state and how the smoothest possible upgrade path looks like.
If the upgrade path is too difficult it might even be possible to drop a great goal for convenience.


>
> Derecommending in-source-build environments:       -1
>
> Out-of-source builds means installing/uninstalling is more pain
> than that and failed installs a common source of errors for
> novice developers.
>

Catkin should NOT require you to install one workspace in order to build a second workspace on top of it.
That is a major limitation of the currently released implementation but nor inherent in the design choice to use CMake.
I expect the upcoming prototype to support that workspace-chaining (independent if the workspaces are installed or just build-space).
With this there is nor real difference between in-source and out-of-source building and this absolutely implies that we should discourage the use of in-source builds.

- Dirk