Furthermore, minimalism in CMake fosters portability and stability. Complex build scripts often rely on hard-coded paths or assumptions about the host operating system. A minimal approach, which leans heavily on CMake’s built-in capabilities and standard variables, is inherently more robust. It treats the build system as a stable interface between the source code and the compiler. By resisting the urge to script complex logic inside CMakeLists.txt , developers ensure that their projects are easier to pick up for newcomers. A junior developer confronted with a 500-line build script will likely retreat in confusion; faced with a 20-line minimal script, they will understand the project’s anatomy instantly.
add_custom_command( OUTPUT $CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR/doc.pdf COMMAND $PDFLATEX_COMPILER ARGS -interaction=nonstopmode -output-directory=$CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR $CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR/doc.tex DEPENDS $CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR/doc.tex COMMENT "Generating PDF from LaTeX" VERBATIM ) minimal cmake pdf