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

[Yotam Barnoy <yotambarnoy@gmail.com>]

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It appears to me that every couple of months we hear of someone
implementing yet another build system in ocaml. Given the success of opam,
I think it's clear that sometimes a monolithic solution, behind which the
entire community can organize, is the best solution -- especially for
infrastructure. Looking at haskell, having cabal as the main build system
has really helped them advance in terms of supporting other platforms (such
as windows), and since all community efforts in this realm are focused on
cabal, they can improve it rapidly.

a. Is there any build system we can organize behind to crown as the
official build system?
b. What are the use-cases missing from specific build systems, that have
driven people to use other build systems?
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?

It's just such a shame to see the ocaml community re-inventing the wheel
over and over again, each time with some limitation so that the next person
needs to do the same thing yet again.

Yotam

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