Re: A proposal for a modern build-system

From: Artyom Beilis (artyom.beilis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2025-05-06 07:51:48

> . I am proposing to replace b2.

While I can agree that b2 isn't particularly good build system by any
stretch of imagination

There was a long and yet incomplete effort of moving to CMake that most around
there are familiar with. CMake works very well and is very well
supported all around.

Replacing one not-so-good homebrew system that was at least polished
with yet another homebrew system is a horrible idea.

Boost needs _less_ of "non-invented-here-syndrome": not _more_ of it

Refrasing Stroustrup there are two types of build systems - everybody
complains about and nobody uses,
and cmake is one everybody is complaining about ;-)

> I mean today CMake is the most common industry standard build system
> > that works really well.
> > Why would you want to use it over something like this?
>
>
> CMake can not support C++20 header-units. One benefit that I forgot is that
> once you have compiled your project with header-units in HMake and you want
> to move to C++20 modules,

It seems like a feature gap that can be fixed at CMake level - either by
cmake developers or by external patch.

Have you considered talking with CMake developers about it and/or submitting
a patch? What do they think about this?

I'm sure they are aware of the problem :-)

>
> By caching the results and not running tests every time. Also,
> configure.exe uses the same code that is used by build.exe. It is fully
> parallel as well.

You don't reconfigure each and every build... cmake caches _a lot_
sorry but it seems to be a false statement.

Best
Artyom