I have a codebase that currently depends on an old version of OMake, and I would rather use ocamlbuild instead. As an end user, I see two key advantages: ocamlbuild is part of INRIA's official OCaml distribution, which implies a certain level of commitment to continued support, and ocamlbuild knows all about how to build OCaml projects (even using ocamlfind), so for simple applications it "just works".

However, I was reluctant to look into ocamlbuild when it first appeared, since the only documentation was a set of presentation slides. It seemed powerful, but like you, I am not really interested in build systems. I'm more encouraged now that a section has appeared in the OCaml manual. Aside from that, are there any other resources I should look into? I'm wondering if there are some documents, or even mailing list threads, that would help me learn how to customize the building of a complex codebase like you just did in the "which ocaml build system" thread? I'm hoping there is a way to acquire this knowledge that doesn't involve trial and error with the build system. :)


On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:
I am not very interested in build systems. I use one (ocamlbuild) that
I find decent (has several known areas of improvement, but bear with
me), and instead of rewriting a new one from scratch¹ I decided that
maybe the existing one I could be improved to fix its shortcomings.
You know, by writing bug reports, and more importantly proposing
patches (to the code or the documentation), instead of just
complaining on the mailing-list. I'm not aware, so far, of a major
design problem that can't be incrementally fixed, and whose resolution
is worth the pain of switching to a completely new system.

¹: or juggling with three different unannounced build systems; I think
you forgot Jenga and the various adaptations of redo for OCaml; nobody
added OCaml rules to Shake as far as I know, but certainly that will
happen in the future.

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 3:14 AM, Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> wrote:
> On 07/26/2013 05:03 AM, Adrien Nader wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I believe this entry on the bugtracker is worth mentionning:
>>    "ocamlbuild should expose common interface as a library"
>>    http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=5869
>>
>> More generally, ocamlbuild's development was mostly stalled but has
>> restarted recently. This should allow fixing many issues and
>> shortcomings.
>
>
> There is not only ocamlbuild!
>
> I would love to see projects such as obuild:
>
> https://github.com/vincenthz/obuild
>
> come out of the woods (like an official release announce if it is
> ready for mass consumption) and become the de facto gold standard.
>
> PS: even OCamlPro have written a tool to replace ocamlbuild
>     (ocp-build)...
>
>
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