ant+cpptasks vs. scons vs. make

Question

I\'m looking into scons and I just want to make sure I know what the alternatives are, before I invest a chunk of brain cells into something completely different. I\'ve been usi

Answer 1

Ant has a very Java-heavy user-base (for natural reasons). The fact that Ant can be very useful in a much broader setting is something most non-Java developers are unaware of. As a result, if you use Ant to build your C/C++-code your much more on your own that if you use a system with larger user base (CMake or SCons).

Personally I've been very happy with CMake, primarily because it is the only build system which can generate real Visual Studio projects. SCons can too, but they only make an external call to SCons, whileas CMake generates projects which use Visual Studio's own build engine. This is very useful if you're working together with people who are used to Visual Studio.

I'm not sure I'd call CMake's support for crosscompilation "mature", since it still pretty young. But the CMake people are serious about it, so I wouldn't hesitate to try it out.