How to Avoid Headaches with Simple CMake - Bret Brown - C++Now 2025

https://www.cppnow.org --- How to Avoid Headaches with Simple CMake - Bret Brown - C++Now 2025 --- CMake headaches? Modern CMake has been around for about a decade now, but in practice CMake use tends to be uneven and overcomplicated. This causes frustration among maintainers and steep learning curves among developers. It also results in overly complicated C++ projects. Even first-class open-source C++ projects often have CMake snarls and snags. Is there a basic CMake approach that just works? In this talk, hear from a CMake veteran about how to keep it simple with CMake. We’ll cover modern CMake principles to keep in mind while maintaining projects built with CMake. We’ll talk about up-to-date CMake basics you’ll find useful – and (some of) the bells and whistles you can skip. To make it easier to keep coming back to these concepts, these recommendations will all be demonstrated with a project you can refer back to. Along the way, we’ll cover some new open-source C++ projects meant to improve our quality of life, while maintaining that “it just works” experience. --- think-cell develops one of the world’s leading PowerPoint applications, with C++ at the core of everything we build, from layout algorithms to deep integration with Microsoft Office. Interested in working on challenging C++ problems with real-world impact? Explore our open roles: https://www.think-cell.com/en/career/... Bret Brown Bret likes making authoring and maintaining C++ codebases simpler and more intuitive by treating projects more like cattle and less like pets. He is especially interested in the software development lifecycle, development automation, modern build systems, packaging, code transformation, software governance, and code analysis. Bret is currently an engineer in Bloomberg's developer experience department. He has worked in embedded C++ and safety critical C++ for previous employers. --- C++Now 2026 - 4th May - 8th May C++Now is an annual onsite international C++ programming and coding conference held in Aspen, Colarado. For all C++ developers, C++ software engineers and those involved with the C++ language, CppNow provides an indepth and technical content provided by the best and brightest C++ experts of the C++ world. Annual CppNow Conference - https://www.cppnow.org   / cppnow     / cppnow     / cppnow     / cppnow   https://mastodon.social/@cppnow Video Sponsors: think-cell and Bloomberg --- Videos Filmed & Edited By Bash Films: https://bashfilms.com/ YouTube Channel Managed & Optimized By Digital Medium Ltd: https://events.digital-medium.co.uk --- #tooling #builds #programming #coding #softwareengineering #softwaredeveloper #code #cplusplusprogramming #cplusplustutorial #cplus #softwaredevelopment #coder #talk