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There's many problems with meson and cmake, but as for meson. Meson is the kind of build system that makes using tools hard as it forces certain workflow to you

There's many problems with meson and cmake, but as for meson. Meson is the kind of build system that makes using tools hard as it forces certain workflow to you. It detects the compiler and tries to be too clever what you can do with it and what you can't. For example recent mishap was that it detected emscripten compiler and didn't allow me to use it as non cross-compiler and so on. There's no way to build static libs, if the project hardcodes shared library building. The codebase is also pretty nuts, I welcome you to go read it. (GNU) Makefiles with some standard variables and pkg-config are still the king. Cmake and meson can work okay for very simple projects, but other than that I'd recommend always using native build system for each platform, or going Makefile + mingw route (if you need windows builds). Using native build system eventually saves you time and headache, especially when these "portable build file generators" don't support some feature you absolutely need, or doesn't allow you to put that command line flag in one of the tools that gets executed under the hood. CMake also absolutely sucks at finding system dependencies when everyone uses those "FindFooBar.cmake" files with hardcoded search paths and what not, instead of using pkg-config. This forces many packagers to hack the projects build system, because the project would otherwise link to wrong library, or not find the library at all. With pkg-config the distributions can provide the correct paths and flags when linking against something. Autotools, while slow and generates tons of shell script that's compatible with all sort of ancient shells and platforms, still manages to offer a standard interface to packagers and fine tune exactly how things get linked, how things get configured and where stuff gets installed. Autotools in general is less headache to packagers than meson or cmake.

dxuh 6y ago
I think being sort of "rigid" is part of the appeal of Meson and definitely intentional (keeps complexity down). I can understand how that might be off-putting or even obstructive to some though. But being too flexible is in a way what made CMake and autotools so bad. I have only done really small stuff with Meson, so I haven't had problems like the Emscripten one you described and I can't say much about it. Regarding static libs Meson docs explicitly state that "library" is preferred over "shared_library", so that you can choose at build configuration time. If some dependency of yours does not follow this advice without having a good reason for it the fault is with them. I use CMake over Makefiles, because for libraries you want people to be able to easily integrate your stuff, so you need to use what everyone uses. And in general it's still the best way to have a (mostly) platform-independent build. Yes, almost all non-trivial CMake files have a bunch of platform-specific extra stuff, but at least you can do it. I also cannot believe how bad the dependency finding works. It actually doesn't work more than it does work. Very often even with libraries that I installed through my systems package manager. I also consider CMake horribly flawed, but it's still better than raw Makefiles.
- Cloudef 6y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with the complexity. You can go read CMake's and Meson's source code and probably agree with me it's not very trivial. Sure they can provide you a "cross-platform" build with ease, but it doesn't come free. You are giving away flexibility and it only works when it works. When it doesn't work you usually have to employ ugly hacks or your build files start to creep in way more complexity than would be needed with native solution, or even by using a simple Makefile or heck even a shell script. In worst case, you'll become a CMake or Meson developer to add that missing functionality, or fix bugs whatever, just to get your thing to build. I also want to point out that the build system isn't just for you, it's also for the users and packagers. Especially for packagers it's important the flexibility is there. I used to use CMake myself a lot way back as well, but eventually got fed up with its problems it always caused (mostly when other people tried to package my projects and there was always some incompatibility or dependencies not being linked correctly, etc...). I also used to think Makefiles are bad, but actually when I sat down reading the GNU Make's manual many things clicked with me, and (GNU) Makefiles are actually very good at building stuff and they aren't that complex at all. Sure there's lots of bad Makefiles around the internet (just like there's also bad CMakeLists) the Makefiles are very powerful when written correctly, and most importantly they are very very fast.
int_19h 6y ago
MinGW still has downsides, like using the ancient version of the C runtime, with missing features and bugs. There are also ABI issues between MinGW and VC++ - more so if you're doing C++, but even in C, stuff like FILE* or locales is not interoperable.
- Cloudef 6y ago
  ABI issues are fundamental problem with C++, not really mingw's fault. If you have to use binary library in C++, then you have to use the same compiler it was compiled with and with the same compiler settings.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    ABI issues are a fundamental problem with having many different ABIs - things are much better on Linux, where there's a clear standard, and everybody conforms to it. VC is the de facto ABI standard on Win32, but I'm not even sure to what extent it's documented, beyond the bits that are needed for COM. In any case, I'm not trying to blame anyone here - just pointing out that MinGW is a second-class citizen when it comes to C/C++ development on Windows, and this is usually more important than having access to MSYS2.

dxuh 6y ago

I think being sort of "rigid" is part of the appeal of Meson and definitely intentional (keeps complexity down). I can understand how that might be off-putting or even obstructive to some though. But being too flexible is in a way what made CMake and autotools so bad. I have only done really small stuff with Meson, so I haven't had problems like the Emscripten one you described and I can't say much about it. Regarding static libs Meson docs explicitly state that "library" is preferred over "shared_library", so that you can choose at build configuration time. If some dependency of yours does not follow this advice without having a good reason for it the fault is with them. I use CMake over Makefiles, because for libraries you want people to be able to easily integrate your stuff, so you need to use what everyone uses. And in general it's still the best way to have a (mostly) platform-independent build. Yes, almost all non-trivial CMake files have a bunch of platform-specific extra stuff, but at least you can do it. I also cannot believe how bad the dependency finding works. It actually doesn't work more than it does work. Very often even with libraries that I installed through my systems package manager. I also consider CMake horribly flawed, but it's still better than raw Makefiles.

Cloudef 6y ago
I'm not sure I agree with the complexity. You can go read CMake's and Meson's source code and probably agree with me it's not very trivial. Sure they can provide you a "cross-platform" build with ease, but it doesn't come free. You are giving away flexibility and it only works when it works. When it doesn't work you usually have to employ ugly hacks or your build files start to creep in way more complexity than would be needed with native solution, or even by using a simple Makefile or heck even a shell script. In worst case, you'll become a CMake or Meson developer to add that missing functionality, or fix bugs whatever, just to get your thing to build. I also want to point out that the build system isn't just for you, it's also for the users and packagers. Especially for packagers it's important the flexibility is there. I used to use CMake myself a lot way back as well, but eventually got fed up with its problems it always caused (mostly when other people tried to package my projects and there was always some incompatibility or dependencies not being linked correctly, etc...). I also used to think Makefiles are bad, but actually when I sat down reading the GNU Make's manual many things clicked with me, and (GNU) Makefiles are actually very good at building stuff and they aren't that complex at all. Sure there's lots of bad Makefiles around the internet (just like there's also bad CMakeLists) the Makefiles are very powerful when written correctly, and most importantly they are very very fast.

int_19h 6y ago

MinGW still has downsides, like using the ancient version of the C runtime, with missing features and bugs. There are also ABI issues between MinGW and VC++ - more so if you're doing C++, but even in C, stuff like FILE* or locales is not interoperable.

Cloudef 6y ago
ABI issues are fundamental problem with C++, not really mingw's fault. If you have to use binary library in C++, then you have to use the same compiler it was compiled with and with the same compiler settings.
- int_19h 6y ago
  ABI issues are a fundamental problem with having many different ABIs - things are much better on Linux, where there's a clear standard, and everybody conforms to it. VC is the de facto ABI standard on Win32, but I'm not even sure to what extent it's documented, beyond the bits that are needed for COM. In any case, I'm not trying to blame anyone here - just pointing out that MinGW is a second-class citizen when it comes to C/C++ development on Windows, and this is usually more important than having access to MSYS2.