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

[Yotam Barnoy <yotambarnoy@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5050 bytes --]

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.

Yotam


On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Leonardo Laguna Ruiz <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),
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6669 bytes --]