[ros-users] Some ROS devs got frustrated with Catkin. You won't believe what happened next!

William Woodall william at osrfoundation.org
Fri Mar 6 20:54:48 UTC 2015


I'd also like to highlight the origin of this new tool. We always wanted to
make a more `rosmake` like tool for catkin, `catkin_make` and
`catkin_make_isolated` were developed in a hurry so they'd be available for
the Groovy release. So when OSRF started working with Google on Project
Tango, I jumped on the opportunity to developed a tool called `pcmi` or
`parallel_catkin_make_isolated` for their build tools. Later I refactored
it out of their fork of `catkin` and into `catkin_tools`. Since then the
community has added a lot of features and use cases. I just wanted to give
a shout out to the Project Tango group for helping us with the resources to
start the tool and for play testing it. It has turned out to be a great
contribution to our community.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 9:01 AM, Mike Purvis <mpurvis at clearpathrobotics.com>
wrote:

> I still use mostly catkin_make in my regular day-to-day workflow, but I
> really like catkin build for bootstrapping a ROS system without needing the
> awkward two-stage build which starts with a catkin_make_isolated underlay—I
> use catkin build to this effect on my Mac OS X installation instructions
> <https://gist.github.com/mikepurvis/9837958>.
>

Yeah, I'd say that `catkin build` is a direct replacement for
`catkin_make_isolated`, but not necessarily `catkin_make`. I think that we
will eventually recommend all users use `catkin build` because it gives a
better user experience, but more experienced developers might still choose
to use `catkin_make` since it is still faster in certain circumstances. I
personally use `catkin build` for everything because I'm willing to trade a
little speed for other nice to have features.


>
> My thanks as well to all contributors here.
>
> Mike
>
> On 5 March 2015 at 11:56, Jonathan Bohren <jonathan.bohren at 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> ros-users at lists.ros.org
>> http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>>
>>
>
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>


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