Re: [Caml-list] One build system to rule them all?

[Francois Berenger <francois.berenger@inria.fr>]

On 09/10/2014 08:59 PM, Yotam Barnoy wrote:
> Here's part of my motivation for starting this discussion now: I
> recently experienced a hard-drive failure and had to switch to my backup
> windows laptop. I was dismayed that opam is still not available for
> Windows, and while wodi is available, it's not nearly as well developed,
> and apparently requires many hacks for different packages.
>
> It seems to me that these hacks are some of the things that make
> platform compatibility hard for opam. Each build system has different
> requirements and methods of compilation, and making this approach
> cross-platform compatible is difficult. Ideally, a build system will
> abstract away the things that are not inter-platform compatible. This is
> why I don't like people using makefiles. Makefiles are not available
> natively on Windows, and they often contain other bits of shell code
> that isn't available on all POSIX platforms, let alone on Windows. Not
> to mention the fact that makefiles have a very tricky and sensitive syntax.
>
> I don't expect one build system to match everyone's requirements, but I
> think if we get together, make a list of requirements, and try to get
> over our personal biases, we can find something that works for most
> people, and with some group effort, can work for even more people in
> more use-cases. I'm not suggesting that we invent something new, but
> that we take something good and make it better, as well as make an
> effort to learn that tool and convert packages to use that tool.
>
> So here are some requirements I can think of (using some of the
> suggestions that have been brought up):
> - Easy to use, especially for small projects (large projects can afford
> to put more time into their build systems)
> - Abstract away platform considerations as much as possible. No
> dependence on specific shells and POSIX utilities.
> - Allows compilation of C files, which is quite common in ocaml packages.
> - Scalable to many directories and files
> - Uses ocamlfind to locate packages
> - Handles camlp4 and ppx
> - Parallel & incremental compilation
>
> About Jenga: I took a quick look at Jenga, and even though I'm impressed
> by its capabilities, the amount of code needed to be written even for
> simple projects is overwhelming. It's clearly a very flexible and
> powerful tool, but I'd say it's too flexible for the mainstream. There's
> always room for a build system that's integrated into ocaml itself (like
> Shake), but I think declarative build systems tend to be easier to
> comprehend for the average user.
>
> ocp-build actually looks very interesting. The manual (which is here:
> http://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-build/blob/master/docs/user-manual/user-manual.pdf?raw=true)
> is incomplete, but contains a nice survey of the existing build tools,
> and motivation for making ocp-build. Has anyone had experience with
> ocp-build? Opam seems to be using it, but they also use a makefile
> (why?) with a bunch of shell commands inside (which is precisely the
> problem from my perspective). ocp-build is supposedly compatible with
> Windows, too.

Here is one thing I dislike in ocp-build: you have to explicitely list 
all the source files (and maybe same thing for Jenga).

I am way too lazy to do that, especially since other tools are able
to infer this list automatically (a library is just a list of modules,
an executable has a single entry point, the main function in a single file).

> Yotam
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Leonardo Laguna Ruiz <modlfo@gmail.com
> <mailto:modlfo@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     My pick is ocamlbuild because:
>
>     - It works the same way in all platforms that I work (linux,osx,
>     windows msvc port, cygwin)
>     - If I can compile ocaml, then I have ocamlbuild
>     - It does not require external libraries
>
>     I have to say that I feel a little bit annoyed by the fact that some
>     other build systems or tools, do not work correctly in all the
>     platforms that I want to support.
>
>     Leonardo
>
>
>
>     On 9/10/2014 4:23 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
>
>         Am Mittwoch, den 10.09.2014, 15:29 +0200 schrieb Francois Berenger:
>
>             More seriously, concerning build systems, we clearly have
>             quite some
>             choice on the OCaml shelf:
>             - obuild
>             - ocamlbuild
>             - omake
>             - oasis (which in fact uses ocamlbuild, don't forget that)
>
>         oasis is not a build system. It is a package description format that
>         describes how to invoke the build (and more). So far there is only
>         built-in knowledge for ocamlbuild, but this may change, and you can
>         already call any external tool, so you can wrap any build system you
>         want. The intention is here more to create a uniform API for
>         starting
>         the build, which may help packagers and other people who
>         routinely build
>         software.
>
>         Gerd
>
>             - jenga
>             - [...]
>
>             My preffered is obuild
>             (https://github.com/ocaml-__obuild/obuild
>             <https://github.com/ocaml-obuild/obuild>),
>             for the terseness, readability and centralization of its build
>             descriptions. I would love to see the user community of
>             obuild grow,
>             so that we can get rid of more bugs, be able to compile _any_
>             OCaml project with it and implement even more cool features
>             (contributors are very welcome).
>
>             I don't want a ring to rule them all, jut a ring that fits
>             _my_ finger. ;)
>
>             --
>             Regards,
>             Francois.
>
>
>
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>

-- 
Regards,
Francois.