The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 5 (of 5) - Which build software do you use

Which build software do you use

We are just starting to investigate automating our VS C++ and Delphi builds and are evaluating FinalBuilder and Visual Build.

Are there any other reasonably priced alternatives out there that you use?

Tony Edgecombe
Thursday, August 26, 2004

make - why would you need anything else?

UT2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004

Build software. You're so funny.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

read Coder To Developer they mention a lot of build software.

I've heard about Cruise Control.

Patrick
Thursday, August 26, 2004

I use AAP. Available for free from www.a-a-p.org. It was the only thing I could find that could give me the flexibility I needed with a clean syntax. (I.e., not XML.)

sid
Thursday, August 26, 2004

A vote for SCons [ http://scons.sourceforge.net ] (and, once the DNS problems get sorted out, [ http://www.scons.org ]). It hasn't been declared "1.0 stable" yet, but it's very close. What you get:

* Smart dependency management and steps, e.g.

Program('test', ['main.c', 'grammar.y', 'lexer.l', 'buffer.cpp'])

is a complete build script that would build 'test.exe' on windows or just 'test' on Unix/Linux, compiling 'main' with a C compiler, 'buffer' with a C++ compiler, 'grammar' with yacc and THEN a C compiler, 'lexer' with Lex and THEN a C compiler, and linking it all together. It would also detect all other dependencies, e.g., h files.

* Many tools supported out of the box, e.g., Java, M4, Latex
* Complex tools (relatively) simple to define - 5 lines is what it takes to define all of Yacc's dependencies.
* A real programming language (Python) for what isn't there out of the box.
* Platform support that makes it possible to build, e.g., shared libraries reasonably.
* autotools-like support (If you don't know what that is, you probably don't need it).
* Parallel and cooperative builds properly supported out of the box.

Ori Berger
Thursday, August 26, 2004

One vote for FinalBuilder. It works great and is easy to use.

Canuck
Thursday, August 26, 2004

Something that some a-hat cobbled together himself.

I'm gonna screeaaaaaam!
Thursday, August 26, 2004

Ctrl-Shift-B

:)

anon-88
Thursday, August 26, 2004

ant - both on Win, Lin and Mac. Has its limitations, but the fact that it's cross-platform rocks.

Catalin (www.rotaru.com)
Friday, August 27, 2004

Boost.Build, soon to be released in an awaited V2, comes to mind. Apparently started out as an improved Perforce Jam.

olympio
Friday, August 27, 2004

a batch file is enough. it cost you no money and easy to maintain.

my dailybuild batch file (VS6):
//----------------------VS6 begin----------------------------------
@echo off
rem Description:
rem These batch command file is a daily build script
rem Requirments:
rem Use Inno Setup 4's console-mode compiler to package the binary-install
rem Use Microsoft Html Help Workshop to compilge the online help
rem Use NMake to compile the Program
rem Uss stlport, so you must set environment variable %INCLUDE%
rem Use OpenJage, Docbook and htmlhelp.dsl to produce the hhp and html files

if not exist "bin" mkdir "bin"
if not exist "Output" mkdir "Output"

echo produce the binary files ...
NMAKE /a /f "src/FlashIME/FlashIME.mak" CFG="FlashIME - Win32 Release"

echo produce htmlhelp files ...
cd txt
cd html_help
call docbook.bat
cd ..
cd ..

echo delete old binary install
cd output
del /Q *.*
cd ..

echo now produce the packages ...
iscc package.iss
cd output
rename setup.exe fisetup.exe
cd ..

iscc package_medical.iss
cd output
rename setup.exe fisetup_medical.exe
cd ..

iscc package_normal.iss
cd output
rename setup.exe fisetup_normal.exe
cd ..

echo now clean the rubbish ...
cd bin
del /Q *.*
cd ..

cd txt
cd html_help
call clean.bat
cd ..
cd ..

//----------------------end----------------------------------

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redguardtoo
Friday, August 27, 2004