Professional CMake: A Practical Guide

by Craig Scott

The handbook for every CMake user, providing structured learning, the latest best practices and real-world advice from one of the CMake co-maintainers.

Genres: Programming, Technology, Software, Computer Science

420 pages, ebook

First published July 10, 2018

Reviews

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the most encompassing source of CMAKE there is to this point.
It gave me the deep and systematic understanding of CMAKE I was searching for.
Highly advised to read it and then keep it as a reference to anybody who's starting or working with CMAKE!

Thank you Craig, now I'm enjoying working with CMAKE projects much more :)

[Mike Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth the price of admission. Have been making do with what I could find on the web, and wish I'd known about this book months ago.

This system seems to be taking over my code biome, and now I have to be able to get into and drive exisiting cmake controlled projects. This book is the missing epoxy matrix of the fiberglass composite of cmake documentation online.

I suspect the material here will become completely superflous shortly, as it enters into my working knowledge, but this book is what got it there. Already a bunch of the things I'd been wondering about are made completely clear, and I see the overall structure of how it is controlled much more clearly. I'm about to dive back into getting getting the projects working on a new system, and knowing me, this will be the last time I would give a review, but this is the book I was looking for.

[Esteban Duran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down one of the best if not the best books on CMake I've ever read. This book strikes the perfect balance of giving enough context and information without simply regurgitating the official CMake documentation. Additionally, the author is constantly updating the book and providing new releases alongside any new CMake release. I highly recommend this book.

[David Bluecame · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional modern CMake book. I have been looking for a decent modern CMake book for a long time. Internet has many bits and pieces here and there, the CMake documentation is way too dry and not providing real guidance. There are some books, even recommended in the official CMake site, that are either old, or only in paper, or just have bad reviews.

I did not know about this book, it does not appear in Amazon/Kindle (at least not to me), but searching and searching at last I got a glimpse of it in some "good CMake books" list. I loved the small free portions available and paid the US 30$ for it to download it directly from the author's website.

I downloaded it in the 3 DRM-free formats: PDF, Mobi and ePub, and both the contents and the presentation are phenomenal. It guides you over CMake as I had been wishing for many years, including the most modern techniques and best practices, in a well explained and to the point manner.

Not only that, but the author also promises to allow access to future editions with the newer CMake versions and practices as they evolve over time.

I want to thank the author for this amazing work, that is helping me immensely in improving the CMake scripts in a project I'm working on as well as other projects I might be involved in the future (personal or otherwise). Great work!!

[Hex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professional CMake shows the latest conventions and guides the reader through all aspects in a good CMake build system. It addresses many problems I had been facing when I started learning CMake before I actually bought this book.
I worked myself through a big part of it but still haven't used all parts of the book and it is going to serve as a valuable reference once I get to that in future projects.

[Marcus Mors · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful, but kind of confusing. Even thought I read at least half the book, cmake still looks awfully verbous and full of errors. Also, since AI and chatgpt appeared, reading this for a simple project is mostly useless. I would recommend the chapter where it explains the parts of a cmakeLists.txt file, that helps your to organize and see what parts of a good file is to formulate a better prompt and an insight of a project.

[Andrew Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written book that gives good practical advice. It guides the reader from one topic to the next building on previous chapters. Concepts and goals are covered as entities, making it clear how the various pieces fit together.

The official reference documentation becomes more useful after reading this book.

[Brian Salehi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an essential first step into knowing CMake, well because there are not many CMake books to read and the documentation coming with CMake is far away from being good for beginners.
That missing one star is for the lack of practical examples in many chapters and somehow leaving readers with theoretical explains and no scenarios.
Anyway, it's good to have it in my library and review it occasionally.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really detailed with current info.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, thank god its over though.

[Denis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, good in-depth coverage for most valuable practical questions...
BUT it only 3 stars as I can't use Apple Pencil + iBook to annotate it, as downloadable PDF is LOCKED!
It's SO frustrating.
Good book + Best reading platform => not ideal experience.

It's definitely something that can and should be fixed.

UPD: found a way around this issue, details in the comments below.