CMake – not a build system!

CMake is a build script generator and acts as a generator for other build systems such as Make and Ninja. It is a tedious and complex job to write effective and cross-platform Makefiles. CMake or similar tools, like Autotools, are developed to deliver finely tuned cross-platform build scripts such as Makefiles or Ninja build files. Note that Ninja is another build system and will be introduced in the next section.

Note:

You can read more about Autotools here: https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Autotools-Introduction.html.

Dependency management is also important, which is not delivered through Makefiles. These generator tools can also check for installed dependencies and won't generate the build scripts if a required dependency is missing from the system. Checking the compilers and their versions, and finding their locations, their supported features, and so on is all part of what these tools...