I would really like to compile KDE applications and code but for KDE I never managed to set up a built system which just worked. Documentation to this end is either completely outdated or comprises five different solution drafts and you will get stuck regardless which path you chose.

Is there any up to date description how to compile and built a particular KDE application from sources which JUST WORKS?

Unfortunately I do not know of any. I recommend simply installing dependencies as CMake configure logs indicate they are needed or optional.

Below is the script I source from ~/.xinitrc which sets up my environment variables. Note that I compile Qt as well, and use /opt/trunk-kde/extras for compiled utilities from sites such as kde-apps.org

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if [ -z "${KDE_ENV_SET}" ]; then
    export TRUNKINSTALLPATH="/opt/trunk-kde"
    # Change this to your kdedir setting in ~/.kdesvn-buildrc
    export KDE_EXTRAS="${TRUNKINSTALLPATH}/extras"
    export KDEDIR="${TRUNKINSTALLPATH}/kde"
    export KDEDIRS="${KDEDIR}:${KDE_EXTRAS}"

    # Change this to your qtdir setting in ~/.kdesvn-buildrc
    export QTDIR="${TRUNKINSTALLPATH}/qt"
    export QT_PLUGIN_PATH="${KDE_EXTRAS}/lib/kde4/plugins:${KDEDIR}/lib/kde4/plugins"

    export PATH="${KDE_EXTRAS}/bin:${KDEDIR}/bin:${QTDIR}/bin:${PATH}"
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${KDE_EXTRAS}/lib:${KDEDIR}/lib:${QTDIR}/lib"
    export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="${KDE_EXTRAS}:${KDEDIR}:${QTDIR}"
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${KDE_EXTRAS}/share/pkgconfig:${KDE_EXTRAS}/lib/pkgconfig:${KDEDIR}/lib/pkgconfig:${KDEDIR}/share/pkgconfig:${QTDIR}/lib/pkgconfig"

    export KDEHOME="${HOME}/.kde4/"
    unset XDG_DATA_DIRS

    # Set the XDG data path, helps finding plugins, etc
    export XDG_DATA_DIRS="${KDE_EXTRAS}/share:${KDEDIR}/share"
    export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS="${KDEDIR}/etc/xdg:${KDE_EXTRAS}/etc/xdg"

    # Don't accidentally get sourced again.
    export KDE_ENV_SET=1
fi

Which application are we talking about?
What kind of source code source are we talking about (SVN, tar balls, etc)?

Cheers,
_

First of all you will need the development essentials of your distribution and some packages that KDE needs specifically you can get this from the Getting started guide never the less. But when it comes to compiling things like trunk from start to finish I advise you to use kdesvn-build.
And here is a simple how to for using kdesvn-build.

Otherwise if you only want to compile things like Bangarang or Konversation there is in Debian/Ubuntu/every other APT based distro a simple line you can run to install what is needed to get you started:

apt-get build-dep konversation


Have fun!

If it's about building KDE from subversion, I have written a guide which I hope "just works". It only describes one path - building with a special user (kde-devel) and kdesvn-build - because I tried to keep it simple. There are also some links to Techbase articles for more information.

To build an application from source, you usually just have to do something like this: (KDE SC 4)

1. Extract archive
2. Enter the extracted directory
3. Make a build directory and enter it

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mkdir build
cd build

4. Run cmake (you might want to specify more/less options)

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cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` ..

Don't forget the two dots at the end!

5. Build and install

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make
sudo make install #install system wide

Generally it's better to let your package manager take care of installing applications since it'll keep track of it, notify you when there's an update etc.