Re: Can zig-build-system be an alternative to the gnu-build-system?

[Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl>]

Hi jgart,

zig as a build system is nice, but it is llvm bound and only targets
zig and C/C++. It does not handle packages, and that is a feature in
my book ;). Mind they are planning to go down the packaging route,
from what I can tell.

There have been some older discussions about creating our own
replacement for autotools, cmake and others. I often fight these make
make systems - and meson and/or language specific build systems. It is
a time waster for programmers and none of these systems leverages the
power of Guix itself. I kinda settled for cmake because, even though
it is an effing dragon, at least I can make it work (pun intended).

We need someone with deep experience in build systems to write a guile
replacement - generating ninja is one idea. That is my opinion :). I
would love a simple way to describe a project in guile. It should not
be too hard actually (famously that is how these projects start and
turn out to be a real time sink). Maybe someone wants to try with
guidance from us, or maybe we can do it when we get bored some day.

Pj.

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 02:03:06AM +0000, jgart wrote:
> Can `zig-build-system` be an alternative to the `gnu-build-system`? 
> 
> https://ziglang.org/learn/why\_zig\_rust\_d\_cpp/#a-package-manager-and-build-system-for-existing-projects
> 
> > Not only can you write Zig code instead of C or C++ code, but you can use Zig as a replacement for autotools, cmake, make, scons, ninja, etc. And on top of this, it (will) provide a package manager for native dependencies. This build system is intended to be appropriate even if the entirety of a project’s codebase is in C or C++.
> 
> WDYT
>