[odb-users] Build system in ODB betas

[Boris Kolpackov]

pravorskii at meta.ua <pravorskii at meta.ua> writes:
 
> 1. With build2, perform only generating autotools configs from templates,
>    and then build packages with the system autoconfig toolchain. Is that
>    possible?
>
> 2. Add support for autotools for the ODB git version too. I'm not sure
>    if the files for build2 and autotools will conflict with each other.
>
> 3. Crazy idea – add cmake support. I can prepare patches if you are not
>    against this option.

While all of these are theoretically possible (and we have done some of
them in the past, like generating autotools/vcproj from templates), the
main problem with all of these approaches is that we have to maintain
multiple build systems with their bugs, idiosyncrasies, etc. In fact,
the main motivation for starting build2 was the situation where we spent
the bulk of our time maintaining all these build systems and then having
lengthy threads on the mailing lists helping people investigate inevitable
issues.

Also keep in mind that building the ODB compiler (which is a GCC plugin) is
not exactly trivial. Specifically, so far the only build systems that can
build it on Windows from source is build2.

So, while am sympathetic to your plight, I don't believe going back to
the multi-build system arrangement is an option for us -- we just don't
have the resource (nor desire, to be honest) to maintain all this mess.
Also note that this is a "teething problem": once build2 is packaged for
Debian, it will be pretty easy to build Debian packages with build2.
In fact, there are already "unofficial" (as in, not in the Debian
repository) packages for build2 if you would like to give them a try
(see Other Installation Methods):

https://build2.org/install.xhtml#other