4 ms·

The only reason Meson exists is that the gnome developers really, really, really couldn't stomach using CMake because KDE ported to it in 2005, 2006. That made

The only reason Meson exists is that the gnome developers really, really, really couldn't stomach using CMake because KDE ported to it in 2005, 2006. That made it so toxic to them that they simply had to come up with alternatives, all of which turned out to be as warty as CMake when they finally came close to reaching -- not even a bit of feature parity or cross-platformity. They could have worked with the CMake people to improve CMake, they could have accepted that CMake has improved a ton since then, but no, CMake has cooties. They had to go and fragment again -- just when we were getting out of autohell. There is no reason for Meson to exist: it should not exist. We were finally coming to a point where we could build any library on any OS using one and the same build system -- and now there's Meson.

Arnavion 5y ago
Having used both for things that are neither gnome-specific nor kde-specific, I'd take meson over cmake any day.
- hallarempt 5y ago
  Which is completely not relevant to what I tried to make clear. Yeah, Meson started out as "we do build systems better" and these days they compare themselves to CMake because Meson is not winning, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. Build system fragmentation is bad. Autohell is bad. If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. People choosing Meson over CMake, especially if they're working on libraries contribute to wanton fragmentation that makes cross-platform development a lot harder. There is no reason, whatsoever, for Meson to exist, other than parochialism, not-invented-here-ism. Even if you would take Meson over CMake any day, you should not do that.
  - Arnavion 5y ago
    >Which is completely not relevant to what I tried to make clear. It is. You wrote: >>There is no reason for Meson to exist: it should not exist. I responded that there is. Namely that it's better. >and these days they compare themselves to CMake because Meson is not winning Meson is winning just fine, given that every new C project I find these days seems to be using it. None of these projects are gnome-specific either, btw. This strawman of meson developers / users feeling insecure is entirely of your construction (and ironic). >If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. Nothing stops its developers from improving it now. But my biggest problem with cmake is not the missing features (there aren't any) but the absolute PITA macro-hell syntax, and I doubt there's anything they can improve in that regard.
  - CrendKing 5y ago
    > There is no reason for Meson to exist: it should not exist. > If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. > Even if you would take Meson over CMake any day, you should not do that. Are you seriously believing this, or are you just trolling? Because you are basically saying: * There is no reason for car to exist because if horse wagons are bad, they could have been improved. Fragmenting the transportation means is atrocious. Look at all the extra cost on the paved roads. * There is no reason for C++/Java/Python/Rust to exist because if C is bad, it could have been improved. If everyone just reads and writes C, we would have built the tower of babel. * There is no reason for Fedora/Ubuntu/BSD to exist because if Debian is bad, it could have been improved. Imagine a world where Linux = Debian and all shells, utils, libraries are written for this one OS and apps can be distributed in binary form just as Windows and Mac.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Distros already have to deal with several build systems. Makefiles, Autotools, CMake, scons, waf, and yes meson. The fragmentation is not that bad. Especially since meson has seemed to push out autoconf more than anything else.

Arnavion 5y ago

Having used both for things that are neither gnome-specific nor kde-specific, I'd take meson over cmake any day.

hallarempt 5y ago
Which is completely not relevant to what I tried to make clear. Yeah, Meson started out as "we do build systems better" and these days they compare themselves to CMake because Meson is not winning, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. Build system fragmentation is bad. Autohell is bad. If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. People choosing Meson over CMake, especially if they're working on libraries contribute to wanton fragmentation that makes cross-platform development a lot harder. There is no reason, whatsoever, for Meson to exist, other than parochialism, not-invented-here-ism. Even if you would take Meson over CMake any day, you should not do that.
- Arnavion 5y ago
  >Which is completely not relevant to what I tried to make clear. It is. You wrote: >>There is no reason for Meson to exist: it should not exist. I responded that there is. Namely that it's better. >and these days they compare themselves to CMake because Meson is not winning Meson is winning just fine, given that every new C project I find these days seems to be using it. None of these projects are gnome-specific either, btw. This strawman of meson developers / users feeling insecure is entirely of your construction (and ironic). >If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. Nothing stops its developers from improving it now. But my biggest problem with cmake is not the missing features (there aren't any) but the absolute PITA macro-hell syntax, and I doubt there's anything they can improve in that regard.
- CrendKing 5y ago
  > There is no reason for Meson to exist: it should not exist. > If CMake was bad, CMake could, and has been, improved. > Even if you would take Meson over CMake any day, you should not do that. Are you seriously believing this, or are you just trolling? Because you are basically saying: * There is no reason for car to exist because if horse wagons are bad, they could have been improved. Fragmenting the transportation means is atrocious. Look at all the extra cost on the paved roads. * There is no reason for C++/Java/Python/Rust to exist because if C is bad, it could have been improved. If everyone just reads and writes C, we would have built the tower of babel. * There is no reason for Fedora/Ubuntu/BSD to exist because if Debian is bad, it could have been improved. Imagine a world where Linux = Debian and all shells, utils, libraries are written for this one OS and apps can be distributed in binary form just as Windows and Mac.

CameronNemo 5y ago

Distros already have to deal with several build systems. Makefiles, Autotools, CMake, scons, waf, and yes meson. The fragmentation is not that bad. Especially since meson has seemed to push out autoconf more than anything else.