Best practice for cpp projects using CMake

1. cmake-init

   1 166 2,539 4.6 CMake

   The missing CMake project initializer

   

   Just use cmake-init which sets you up with a variation of the pitchfork layout.

2. SaaSHub

   www.saashub.com sponsored

   SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

   

3. moderncpp-project-template

   2 2 332 3.8 CMake

   A Modern C++ cross-platform Project Template with CMake, conan (optional), cppcheck (optional) and clang-format (optional)

   

4. chromium

   3 292 24,519 10.0 C++

   The official GitHub mirror of the Chromium source

   

   I don't think the arguments presented in the proposal are a matter of opinion. Not sure I understand exactly what you mean by "searching only headers" or "only test" (though I'm assuming you don't mean something akin to grepping in which case it's very easy to filter by extension), but having the source and header files next to each other makes reading the code base significantly easier. This may not be apparent in small projects, but from personal experience it becomes extremely helpful in large code bases. Take the Chromium project for example (e.g., the networking library https://github.com/chromium/chromium/tree/main/net/base). In a project of this scale, having the header and the source files placed together (and the tests) makes it extremely easy to jump between the declaration of a class for instance, and its implementation or related unit tests (which I believe is an important process). I rarely find myself wanting to look at only the header files of a given project. I do, however, often jump between the declaration of a class in a header file and its implementation in the corresponding source file, and having them next to each other makes it very easy.

5. pitchfork

   4 9 1,255 0.0 C++

   Pitchfork is a Set of C++ Project Conventions

   

   Just use cmake-init which sets you up with a variation of the pitchfork layout.

6. modern-cmake

   5 2 - -

   (source project on gitlab is https://gitlab.com/CLIUtils/modern-cmake)

7. cmake_conan_boilerplate_template

   6 2 175 10.0 CMake

   Discontinued Minimized version of cpp_starter_project

   

8. cmkr

   7 15 629 7.2 C++

   Modern build system based on CMake and TOML.

   

   I would like to counter with a project I’ve been working on: https://cmkr.build. Unfortunately writing good CMake is extremely repetitive and there is definitely room for a generator that has sane defaults.

9. platform_system_core

   8 2 1,177 0.0 C++

   

   As far as scientific studies go, I'm not sure if there are any that support the arguments of the linked proposal, but if you take a look at some of the most complex, large scale projects out there, you'll notice that they follow to a large extent the same structure as the one outlined in the above proposal. For instance, checkout the Google Chromium project, the AOSP projects, abseil, folly and many others. Of course, there will be exceptions so this is not a foolproof argument but I think it's interesting that projects of this scale have been designed this way.

10. abseil-cpp

    9 71 18,077 9.5 C++

    Abseil Common Libraries (C++)

    

    As far as scientific studies go, I'm not sure if there are any that support the arguments of the linked proposal, but if you take a look at some of the most complex, large scale projects out there, you'll notice that they follow to a large extent the same structure as the one outlined in the above proposal. For instance, checkout the Google Chromium project, the AOSP projects, abseil, folly and many others. Of course, there will be exceptions so this is not a foolproof argument but I think it's interesting that projects of this scale have been designed this way.

11. Folly

    10 108 30,493 9.9 C++

    An open-source C++ library developed and used at Facebook.

    

    As far as scientific studies go, I'm not sure if there are any that support the arguments of the linked proposal, but if you take a look at some of the most complex, large scale projects out there, you'll notice that they follow to a large extent the same structure as the one outlined in the above proposal. For instance, checkout the Google Chromium project, the AOSP projects, abseil, folly and many others. Of course, there will be exceptions so this is not a foolproof argument but I think it's interesting that projects of this scale have been designed this way.

12. fixed-size-string-buffer

    11 1 2 8.0 C++

    A pre-allocated ring buffer for std::string messages

    

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