Which build system to use?

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tekr
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Which build system to use?

Post by tekr »

Hi all!

There seems to be quite a few build systems that are used in chipmunk. Those are CMake and SCons, and in addition to those there are XCode and Visual Studio projects. I think it would make things simpler to use only one build system. I think SCons and CMake would both be good choises, as they are cross-platform.

I myself have used SCons in my own projects, so I might be of some help with that (although I don't have a mac to test on). I'm going to post one small game that uses SCons soon.

For now, I just wanted to know if there are any plans about that. Are you going to move on to SCons, perhaps?
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slembcke
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Re: Which build system to use?

Post by slembcke »

I originally started with the XCode project being a Mac user myself. Visual Studio users wanted a VS project, and not just a library that they could drop in their projects. Linux users wanted something too, and somebody made the CMake files for me. For both of those, people have stepped in to patch the projects when it was needed.

Eventually, we created a version of our Crayon Ball game that ran on Windows and Linux as well (though the Linux version was never released). To do that, we were experimenting with SCons to build the project on all platforms using a single build script. While SCons worked really well for that, it isn't really that useful all the time. I continue using XCode when working on iPhone projects, or for Chipmunk's general development as well. Visual Studio users are still going to want their own project, and Linux users will want something they can use too. I guess I don't really see having several separate build systems as being a problem, but just a pain in that it makes it harder to make a release.
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Anthony
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Re: Which build system to use?

Post by Anthony »

Hello,

I have some experience with CMake and am currently using Chipmunk in my PhD project built with CMake.
I have also used SCons from time to time.

For Chipmunk I'd rather use CMake for it can generate NATIVE XCode / VS projects.
And it can also generate CodeBlocks / KDevelop / Eclipse CDT project with build managed under the hood by a Makefile.
And those features are - I think - extremely convenient.

Moreover for relatively simple to build project the CMakeLists are quite simple and a full-featured scripting language - like Python in SCons - is definetly NOT required.

By the way I fond some "bugs" in 4.1.0 CMakelist version.
I will cook a patch as soon as possible :-)
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