# The Official CMake Tutorial Is Intimidating

**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606
**Category:** Site Feedback
**Created:** [January 22, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606 "2021-01-22T17:51:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/ymba9g8j9cjp0wloqf5y/32/1244_2.png) [@YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/YMba9g8j9CJp0wLoQf5y)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/1 "2021-01-22T17:51:36Z")

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[https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/guide/tutorial/index.html#id1](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/guide/tutorial/index.html#id1)

I’m trying to get my company to transition to using CMake.

I have found the official CMake tutorial to be intimidating to new users of CMake. (By the way the first time I started using CMake I felt the same way).

Here is my design suggestion.

Breakup the tutorial.

Currently there are different steps in the tutorial. However it’s all on the same page.

I think it should be broken up into more pages.

Because having Step1, Step2, etc. on the same page is scary or boring depending on the person.

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### Author: ![brad.king](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/brad.king/32/11_2.png) [@brad.king](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/brad.king)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2021, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/2 "2021-01-22T18:15:02Z")

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Thanks. I opened [CMake Issue 21737](https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/issues/21737) to track this. Splitting out each step into its own page sounds good to me.

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### Author: ![jtxa](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/jtxa/32/1535_2.png) [@jtxa](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/jtxa)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/3 "2021-06-10T23:34:48Z")

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Please have a look at [CMake MR 6217](https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/merge_requests/6217) for a splitted tutorial.

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### Author: ![Mike](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/mike/32/1570_2.png) [@Mike](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/Mike)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/4 "2021-06-17T20:37:08Z")

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So … here’s an even more basic question, possibly I should just start a new topic but whatever.  
Where is this tutorial test code? Step1? Step2? I would expect to find it at the tutorial site as shown above or something.

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### Author: ![jtxa](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/jtxa/32/1535_2.png) [@jtxa](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/jtxa)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/5 "2021-06-17T23:14:25Z")

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The tutorial says at the beginning:

> The tutorial documentation and source code for examples can be found in the `Help/guide/tutorial` directory of the CMake source code tree.

So you need to download the CMake source as zip/tar.gz or clone from the git repository. Here’s the online Gitlab link:  
[https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/tree/master/Help/guide/tutorial](https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/tree/master/Help/guide/tutorial)

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### Author: ![Mike](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/mike/32/1570_2.png) [@Mike](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/Mike)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-official-cmake-tutorial-is-intimidating/2606/6 "2021-06-18T15:22:57Z")

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Got it, thanks. I can see now that my problem is that I downloaded the Binary Distribution rather than the Source because I thought … well, never mind what I thought. 🙄

Thanks a lot.
