Best build tool for D projects

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-05-13 19:38, Chris Molozian wrote:
> Hey All,
>
> This is my first post to the mailing list, I'm an avid follower of D's
> development and am currently using it to develop a compiler for my
> thesis work. One of the goals of this stage of the development work is
> to provide a simple build environment to compile the codebase on Linux,
> Windows and Mac OS X. The only complex aspects of the build process is
> compiling the LLVM-D bindings and linking to LLVM.
>
> I'm evaluating build tools for this purpose and have concluded (correct
> me if I'm wrong) that the D-orientated build tools: Bud
> <http://www.dsource.org/projects/build> and DSSS
> <http://www.dsource.org/projects/dsss> are abandoned. I'm not sure
> whether development on xfBuild
> <https://bitbucket.org/h3r3tic/xfbuild/overview> is still going on.
>
> I'd like to use a tool that is easy for testers to install on their
> system (preferably pre-built binaries are available) and use to compile
> my work. I've been looking at C/C++ build tools and have narrowed it
> down to these:
>
>     * Jam (ftjam) <http://www.freetype.org/jam/index.html>,
>       cross-platform and platform independent build language. Lots of
>       variants with the same name, therefore finding it hard to find
>       good tutorials and documentation.
>     * Boost.Build (bjam) <http://www.boost.org/boost-build2/>, not sure
>       how it differs to ftjam.
>     * Cook <http://miller.emu.id.au/pmiller/software/cook/>, can't find
>       whether it can be built for use on Windows. No pre-built Windows
>       binary. Very extensive documentation, although I think the default
>       build file name is silly "Howto.cook" :-) .
>
> After all this preamble I guess what I'm asking is... what (if any)
> cross-platform build tools does everyone use with their D projects? Any
> feedback on experiences with any of the build tools I've mentioned is
> also greatly appreciated. If you can suggest any alternatives, please do.
>
> If you've read this far, thanks for taking the time to read it :-) and
> sorry for the long message.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
> PS: I've seen the CMakeD <http://www.dsource.org/projects/cmaked>
> module, I know a lot of people recommend CMake for cross-platform builds
> and that the KDE guys use it. I have tried to like it... but settled on
> hating it. The procedural language is daft and ugly and I loathe the
> CMakeLists.txt file that goes in each directory. I've already ruled it out.

I'm still using DSSS.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg