Meeting: build system on Windows

Hi all, I would like to have an IRC meeting about the build system on Windows.
Although I like buildtool, it cannot do parallel builds, so I am happy to change (back) to something else. And unify it with Linux if possible... I am trying cmake now, but it does not link without errors yet. It is not very encouraging to see the cmake build process get stuck on some intermediate step for a long while, seemingly checking something to find out it does not need to rebuild it. "btool" does this much much quicker...
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
Regards, Johan

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Johan Engelen <jbc.engelen@...2592...> wrote:
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
I will take part, but probably won't be of much use. Given that we'd like to provide native 64bit builds, it probably wouldn't hurt for that to be a part of the discussion as well.
As an aside, I see that GIMP has a 32bit/64bit installer that they're testing. Not saying we want to go the universal installer route, but it's probably worth taking a look at. http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html (scroll down)
Cheers, Josh

On 8 Mar 2012, at 20:52, Johan Engelen <jbc.engelen@...2592...> wrote:
Hi all, I would like to have an IRC meeting about the build system on Windows.
Although I like buildtool, it cannot do parallel builds, so I am happy to change (back) to something else. And unify it with Linux if possible... I am trying cmake now, but it does not link without errors yet. It is not very encouraging to see the cmake build process get stuck on some intermediate step for a long while, seemingly checking something to find out it does not need to rebuild it. "btool" does this much much quicker...
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
I'll join if I'm able. We discussed having irc meetings more anyway, do we want to make it top item on a general one?

On 08-03-12 21:52, Johan Engelen wrote:
Hi all, I would like to have an IRC meeting about the build system on Windows.
Although I like buildtool, it cannot do parallel builds, so I am happy to change (back) to something else. And unify it with Linux if possible... I am trying cmake now, but it does not link without errors yet. It is not very encouraging to see the cmake build process get stuck on some intermediate step for a long while, seemingly checking something to find out it does not need to rebuild it. "btool" does this much much quicker...
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
Depends on when the meeting is, but I wouldn't mind participating.
And here's an alternative option: use buildtool on Linux as well. Seriously. Yes, buildtool has its deficiencies, and it is much less flexible than *make, but it is /so/ much easier to use and maintain (the build file itself I mean, not buildtool). I'm completely unaware of the issues involved in getting it to work on Linux, so perhaps it's just not very feasible. Or perhaps I'm unaware of some of the issues buildtool has on Windows. But I would hate to see buildtool go and be replaced by some other monster of a build system just because it couldn't do parallel builds (which should in principle be fixable).
(Obviously non-monster build systems are welcome to apply, but I haven't seen many of those.)

---- Jasper van de Gronde <th.v.d.gronde@...528...> wrote:
On 08-03-12 21:52, Johan Engelen wrote:
Hi all, I would like to have an IRC meeting about the build system on Windows.
Although I like buildtool, it cannot do parallel builds, so I am happy to change (back) to something else. And unify it with Linux if possible... I am trying cmake now, but it does not link without errors yet. It is not very encouraging to see the cmake build process get stuck on some intermediate step for a long while, seemingly checking something to find out it does not need to rebuild it. "btool" does this much much quicker...
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
Depends on when the meeting is, but I wouldn't mind participating.
And here's an alternative option: use buildtool on Linux as well. Seriously. Yes, buildtool has its deficiencies, and it is much less flexible than *make, but it is /so/ much easier to use and maintain (the build file itself I mean, not buildtool). I'm completely unaware of the issues involved in getting it to work on Linux, so perhaps it's just not very feasible. Or perhaps I'm unaware of some of the issues buildtool has on Windows. But I would hate to see buildtool go and be replaced by some other monster of a build system just because it couldn't do parallel builds (which should in principle be fixable).
(Obviously non-monster build systems are welcome to apply, but I haven't seen many of those.)
One idea I had is that, whichever buildsystem we use, we could just hardcode the library stuff for windows, and force people to use the devlibs ;-) I think what makes it hard to maintain is trying to make it find libs automatically, set the correct link flags, etc. But perhaps I am wrong :) If someone wants to spend time and make buildtool do parallel builds, I am happy too.
-Johan

W dniu 8 marca 2012 21:52 użytkownik Johan Engelen <jbc.engelen@...2592...> napisał:
Hi all, I would like to have an IRC meeting about the build system on Windows.
Although I like buildtool, it cannot do parallel builds, so I am happy to change (back) to something else. And unify it with Linux if possible... I am trying cmake now, but it does not link without errors yet. It is not very encouraging to see the cmake build process get stuck on some intermediate step for a long while, seemingly checking something to find out it does not need to rebuild it. "btool" does this much much quicker...
In any case, I'd like to discuss the options. Who's in?
I'm in.
I managed to get an old revision of Inkscape to compile with Waf. Since then I've been working with this build system on other projects, and would do a few things more elegantly. Despite some limitations, Waf looks like a good choice, and is definitely a lot easier to use than CMake. I can share my experiences if people are interested.
Regards, Krzysztof
participants (6)
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unknown@example.com
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Jasper van de Gronde
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Johan Engelen
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John Cliff
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Josh Andler
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Krzysztof Kosiński