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Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 19:16:30 +0100
From: "Richard W.M. Jones" <rich@annexia.org>
To: Yotam Barnoy <yotambarnoy@gmail.com>
Cc: Ocaml Mailing List <caml-list@inria.fr>
Message-ID: <20140914181630.GD3416@annexia.org>
References: <CAN6ygO=P_QTa6Wk0=Wx=0XLwhGOP=16eGaGiacA5N60nRjApDQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [Caml-list] One build system to rule them all?

On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 08:49:06AM -0400, Yotam Barnoy wrote:
> b. What are the use-cases missing from specific build systems, that have
> driven people to use other build systems?

In a non-OCaml-centric world you need to fit into other projects.  The
virt-* tools are a good example here, since they are mostly written in
C, and use automake/autoconf.  And the OCaml virt tools have to link
with C and so are also built using only autotools.

Example of mixed C / OCaml program built using autotools:

https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/tree/master/v2v

> c. To pick one possible candidate, if ocamlbuild were spun out of the
> compiler, could it be enhanced to cover all the main use-cases so (almost)
> everyone would be happy with it?

ocamlbuild is horribly obscure.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat