[cdt-dev] Build System redo

[Doug Schaefer <dschaefer@xxxxxxx>]

Hey gang,

Another thing we discussed at EclipseCon and there seems to be at least a little momentum behind it is a redo of the build system. It’s gone a long way in probably the wrong direction since I started with the build model 10 years ago or so. But we continue to struggle without someone maintaining it on a regular basis. We really need to simplify it so we can at least jump in quickly and fix anything that goes wrong there.

I think we’re a lock that the June 2016 release will be a major CDT release, 9.0, which gives us a great opportunity to get this done. I just want to make sure we do it as a community and not repeat the mistakes of the past. I’ll set up a wiki where we can capture ideas, but we should really start by agreeing on a number of requirements.

To that end, here’s my quick thoughts on where I’d like to see us go:

• Make it easy to support alternative build systems like Autotools, CMake, Qt’s qmake, Boost.Build, etc.
• Make sure we can get what we need for the parsers out of any build system.
• Make sure we support external builds. You shouldn’t need to start up Eclipse to build.
• And that means removing the internal builder (sad, I dreamed of that but it’s too much of a burden now)
• Support Visual Studio/Xcode style build settings. Not ever user knows how to write build files.

The big one is the internal builder. Much of the build model was created to support it. If we remove it as a requirement, we can probably simplify a lot of things. But it does mean we need an external build system to be present on the users machine which will be a challenge on Windows.

And I’m sure there’s more. I’d love to hear from you and what you think we should do.

Thanks,

Doug