2

Let's say I have a bunch of small targets in different programming languages (C++, Java, Python, etc), with inter programming language dependencies (Java project depends on a C++, Python depends on C++). How can one build/compile them?

I tried scons and more recently gyp. I don't remember what issues I had with scons. Gyp has a very ugly language definition plus I had to hack ant scripts in order to build my java targets.

Improve this question
8
  • 4
    you what? this question seriously needs more explanation in it Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 22:13
  • 2
    "best way to build them"?.. thats entirely subjective. I use SCons with fair amount of success. Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 22:21
  • 3
    I have sought for the answer to this question since I started programming. If you find one, please share. Is it possiblr for users to watch questions and get updated when an answer is chosen in stackoverflow? Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 22:40
  • 2
    @Yasky: You can click on the "star" to make a question your favorite so that you can go back to it and look at the responses. Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 22:49
  • 2
    SCons is the tool I reach for for complex builds. It works particularly well for the languages in question. (Maven appears to be a wonderful kitchen-sink tool if you want to deal with the complexity. Java IDEs have good support for Ant, but I would hate to have to edit the xml by hand.) Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 23:38

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I would pick one of the more configurable build tools like ant or maven, as a starting point.

Ant is highly configurable, and worst case you can use it to exec another build process (like, make, or whatever you normally use for C++).

Maven also has a number of plugins natively supported for other languages besides java. A quick search of the plugins page shows that maven has native support to build C and C++ code, a google search also hinted at 3rd party plugins that will build your python project as well.

While ant is powerful and configurable, I agree that you sometimes have to hack ant to get it to do what you want, which is neither clean nor desirable. Having worked on my project with maven over the past year, I highly recommend it. We use it to build our java code base, action script front end, run unit and integration tests, and run our database scripts. Moreover, it has great hooks to our continuous integration tools so the builds we run can be automated. With a large number of plugins available, we haven't found much that maven can't do for us.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

0

I once checked out CMake (for C++), I liked it very much. It's easy to use yet powerful and quite similar to Make syntax. It also has Java support.

Improve this answer

2 Comments

Image
What about copying and deleting files? Does it create directories as well? How does one tell project dependencies?
Image
It does support both, but for the details you really need to check out the FAQ. (cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ) CMake has a builtin dependencies scanner but you can also tell CMake the deps explicitely. Check out some simple CMakeLists.txt files here: cs.swarthmore.edu/~adanner/tips/cmake.php

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.