Top all-time · #3426
Kitware Inc
Company blog · kitware.com/blogprogrammingsystems
Kitware Inc is the company blog at kitware.com, writing about programming and systems. Since 2012, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 32 times, most often “CMake now has initial support for C++ 20 modules”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Kitware blog posts on CMake, C++20 modules, build systems, and VTK/PyVista scientific and medical imaging tools. Commenters cite them as sources rather than judging the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Through a highly competitive and selective hiring process, we’ve cultivated a team of internationally renowned researchers and developers in advanced technical computing.
Most-linked posts?
- /import-cmake-c20-modules2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-14
- CMake now has initial support for C++ 20 modules2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-08
- WebGPU – One Graphics API to Rule Them All2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-04-14
What Hacker News says?
This is where cmake missed the boat, imo. They were even using Tcl/Tk for a medical imaging project[0] when they decided they needed their own build system. Then when they needed an expressive embedded language, wrote an ad hoc one from scratch. [0] https://www.kitware.com/platforms/#itk
Comment linking /platforms/
on “Afraid of Makefiles? Don't be”Submitted CMake 4.0.0 Released as a story · 8 points
HN discussionOr possibly OP has access via his employer Kitware? Kitware could be doing software consultancy for Formlabs. They already have expertise in 3D slicing [1][2][3], which is just what you need for 3D printing. This is pure uninformed speculation: Formlabs look like they have great hardware. On the other hand they could be under competitive pressure on the software front. Firstly there's Autodesk who launched Ember as…
Comment linking /platforms/
on “Show HN: 3D Packing for 3D Printing”Submitted Computer Vision in Python for Matlab users. as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAt this point, it's not realistic to maintain interesting C++ programs without a build system. That being said, I expect the specific g++ example you provide will end up working with some special casing in the compiler, at least eventually, when someone submits patches to GCC to get it to work. But mostly, it's not realistic to directly wire up calls to g++ anymore outside of research examples. Note that other compi…
Comment linking /import-std-in-cmake-3-30/
on “3rd Edition of Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ by Stroustrup”Submitted So You Want to Open Source Your Code? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionC++ modules need a lot of communication between build systems, compilers, packaging environments, and other dev tools like clangd. Given some of that interop isn't available anywhere due to missing or at least unimplemented protocols, I expect XMake is overpromising here. The CMake blogs are more qualified: 1. General named module use: https://www.kitware.com/import-cmake-c20-modules/ 2. Importing the std module: ht…
Comment linking /import-std-in-cmake-3-30/
on “Xmake: A cross-platform build utility based on Lua”Submitted Generating SBOMs with CMake as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTwo female image processing researchers recently used a picture of Fabio as a test image in a paper of theirs: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6429 (Additional discussion at http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/246 ) Personally, I'm all for the use of amusing (arousing?) test images, as long as they exhibit features that actually make for a good test image (a mix of flat and textured regions, sharp boundaries, etc.).
Comment linking /blog/home/post/246
on “The Rest of the Lenna Story”Submitted The Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt is worth mentioning that while not as friendly as Pyvista, VTK recently got a new "pythonnic" API with the 9.4 release, that aims to be nicer to use than the direct C++ classes wrapping https://www.kitware.com/vtk-9-4-a-step-closer-to-the-ways-of...
Comment linking /vtk-9-4-a-step-closer-to-the-ways-of-python/
on “PyVista”Submitted Kitware Releases CMake 3.2 to Advance Software Development as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLooks like PyVista is just one of many similar projects [0] maintained by Kitware[1], a private company focused on scientific computing. Lots of medical domain stuff. [0] https://www.kitware.com/open-source/ [1] https://www.kitware.com/about/
Comment linking /about/
on “PyVista”Submitted CMake 2.8.11 Released as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCMake already has decent support for dependency building through External Projects: http://www.kitware.com/media/html/BuildingExternalProjectsWi... There are a number of issues/annoyances with the mechanism, especially when working with local modifications, but nothing to make me eager to add the anguish of bash+CMake onto the existing toil of CMake. (Arguably this also bootstraps a build environment, whereas CMake…
Comment linking /media/html/BuildingExternalProjectsWithCMake2.8.html
on “Show HN: Cross-platform dependency manager using bash and cmake”Submitted VTK Integrating WebGPU as a story · 1 points
HN discussion>>The VA is a prime example of antiquated government computing; its main systems run on a 1960s vintage system called MUMPS, a dead digital language that few people under retirement age know how to use. This is simply untrue. This language is now called 'M', and has been standardized as recently as 2005. All of TD Ameritrade's trades are processed on an M database. M was doing NoSQL, web-scale computing on commodity…
Comment linking /blog/home/post/465
on “America’s Tech Guru Steps Down, But He’s Not Done Rebooting the Government”Submitted WebGPU – One Graphics API to Rule Them All as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNote that module files (.ccm files in the example) cannot be parsed in parallel like that. The build system has to know what order to parse module files in. I guess if all .ccm files only did #includes and no imports, the provided Makefile example would work, but that seems like a niche use case. Instead, some sort of dependency graph amongst the .ccm needs to be encoded in the Makefiles. There is an ISO paper descr…
Comment linking /import-cmake-c20-modules
on “Trying out C++20's modules with Clang and Make”Submitted A Year Closer to Standard C++ Dependency Management as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> To follow up with some research I did on this: > > No free DICOM viewer on the market carries FDA clearance or CE marking. Not 3D Slicer [1], not Horos [2], not OHIF. Even RadiAnt — which is paid and arguably the most popular Windows viewer — explicitly states "our viewer is not a medical product" and has no FDA/CE certification or timeline for one [3]. Interestingly, RadiAnt is also a solo-developer operation (Me…
Comment linking /kitware-supports-development-and-launch-of-fda-cleared-mr-image-processingsoftware-for-lung-ventilation-imaging/
on “OrthoRay – A native, lightweight DICOM viewer written in Rust/wgpu by a surgeon”Submitted CMake 3.28.0 available, with C++20 modules support as a story · 1 points
HN discussionA side effect from Apple nowadays caring more about Swift than contributing to clang. https://www.kitware.com/import-cmake-c20-modules/
Comment linking /import-cmake-c20-modules/
on “My (Herb Sutter's) C++ Now 2023 talk is online: “A TypeScript for C++””Submitted Import CMake; the Experiment Is Over as a story · 1 points
HN discussionCMake is getting there, https://www.kitware.com/import-cmake-c20-modules , and you can easily use them on Visual C++ 2022. All my hobby coding is done with modules nowadays. The problem with clang is called Apple and Google, as they decided to focus on their own languages (Swift, Objective-C, Carbon, C++17 being good enough), the compiler vendors that profit from clang forks haven't cared that much to contribute to…
Comment linking /import-cmake-c20-modules
on “C++23 “Pandemic Edition” is complete”Submitted CMake now has initial support for C++ 20 modules as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hey computer, use a GUI like a human would with mouse, keyboard and vision as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Raspberry Pi likes its Camera as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted KiwiViewer: native 3D visualization for iOS (Android: WIP) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Open Source and the Innovator's Dilemma Revisited as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
