I've spent my first 15 years in video games, then 2.5 years in Google, and I'm moving again to video games. I'll stick to C++, IDEs and BUILD files. Before an

I've spent my first 15 years in video games, then 2.5 years in Google, and I'm moving again to video games. I'll stick to C++, IDEs and BUILD files. Before any project, it was Turbo/Borland Pascal and TPU files. No real projects, but it was very easy to use a module, no header files, just "Use Something;" done. C# carried that in there, and Java too. Then for C++ it was first a simple text files with what to compile, later Makefiles (I still love them), .vcproj, .vcxproj/.sln, scons, cmake, qmake, qbs, custom tailored makefiles, etc. I've never found any of these good, until I used Blaze (Bazel on the outside) at Google (alternatively generate-ninja (gn) for Chromium/Fuchsia, close but not the same). So what do I like about BUILD files, Bazel and WORKSPACES? It's simply this: cc_library( name = "my_lib", srcs = [ "one.cc", "two.cc" ] # has glob() too hdrs = [ "one.h", "two.h" ] deps = [ "//base/something:project" ], # // is like a root for all projects. ) No transitive dependencies, e.g. if A depends on B, B on C, A can't use "C" just because B did. A also needs to declare it. It takes a while to convince yourself, but then it becomes clear why this is done so. Bazel (blaze) gets a little bit harder to use if you target different platforms (say ps2, ps3, ps4, xbox, wii, pc, etc.), but there is way to declare that, in this respect GN is much easier, just use "if (is_pc) {}" in the declarations (they are BUILD-like), and you are done. I just bought the IntelliJ package /yearly, got CLion, also some other things, and started using it for home projects. It comes with bazel support (plugin), so that helps. -- On the other hand there is QtCreator, Visual Studio (the current free version is almost like professional except CodeLens), then some more experimental ones like the Juce's Projucer, and plenty more.