Replacing Make for the DMD build

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 16 June 2017 at 06:30:01 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> A direct question to Walter and Andrei really.

While they would ultimately decide this, it's more likely that 
something championed by the D contributors will get in.

> If someone, let us say Russel Winder, create a CMake/Ninja 
> and/or Meson/Ninja build for DMD, is there any chance of it 
> being allowed to replace the Make system?

Allow me to veto CMake.  I've been using it with ldc and I hate 
it almost as much as Make.  As for Meson, never dealt with it 
much, do you have an example for D code we can look at?  The 
trivial samples on their site look fine and python is supported 
everywhere we want, but I'd like to see what it'd look like for a 
non-trivial D project.

One issue that came up is that whatever we replace Make with 
would have to generate Makefiles as a fallback, back in the 
previous thread about using Atila's build system, Reggae.

> If the answer is no, then Russel will obviously not waste his 
> time doing something that will not be accepted.

Even if you do the work, like Atila did, you may not get a clear 
answer.  Better to just do it, if you believe in it.  At least 
you can get it merged as an alternative to Make and if people use 
it, the two can be switched over someday.