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Some obvious questions: 1. How does redo compare with lower-level build tools such as ninja? 2. Why is it important/worthwhile to create a simplified/elegant

Some obvious questions: 1. How does redo compare with lower-level build tools such as ninja? 2. Why is it important/worthwhile to create a simplified/elegant version of Make, when for a few decades already, it is customary to write something higher-level that generates Makefiles (or builds in ways other than through Make, like scons or again via ninja)? 3. Is there a redo generator for CMake, and does it have advantages over Makefile generation?

Arch-TK 5y ago
0. I would recommend you actually read about redo yourself. Redo is not just the implementation posted here (which personally I don't like for multiple reasons). Redo is a very simple idea envisioned by DJB a while ago which was never implemented by him properly. You can read more about it here: http://cr.yp.to/redo.html http://cr.yp.to/redo.html it won't take long. 1. Ninja is not meant to be hand written, redo can be hand written. Ninja verbosely describes your build as flat file containing the description of a DAG and the rules required to traverse it. Redo is a recursive definition, intended to be mostly hand written, which describes your build process. Redo can and should be split up across multiple files. 2. It may be customary to you, but not everyone agrees that the correct solution to building a project is to have a gigantic software suite consume a confusing and abstract configuration file and spit out a bunch of buggy makefiles. There are in fact plenty of people who hand write makefiles, redo fits in that same space. It's easier to hand write, it's easier to fully describe the DAG of your project, it's easier to reason about the build process and it's easier to make sure it is correct. 3. No. It would make no sense to have a redo generator for CMake as it would be severely missing the point of redo. The only reason CMake has generators for anything but ninja is because some people worry about portability to other systems and as such having make is better than nothing.

Arch-TK 5y ago

0. I would recommend you actually read about redo yourself. Redo is not just the implementation posted here (which personally I don't like for multiple reasons). Redo is a very simple idea envisioned by DJB a while ago which was never implemented by him properly. You can read more about it here: http://cr.yp.to/redo.html http://cr.yp.to/redo.html it won't take long. 1. Ninja is not meant to be hand written, redo can be hand written. Ninja verbosely describes your build as flat file containing the description of a DAG and the rules required to traverse it. Redo is a recursive definition, intended to be mostly hand written, which describes your build process. Redo can and should be split up across multiple files. 2. It may be customary to you, but not everyone agrees that the correct solution to building a project is to have a gigantic software suite consume a confusing and abstract configuration file and spit out a bunch of buggy makefiles. There are in fact plenty of people who hand write makefiles, redo fits in that same space. It's easier to hand write, it's easier to fully describe the DAG of your project, it's easier to reason about the build process and it's easier to make sure it is correct. 3. No. It would make no sense to have a redo generator for CMake as it would be severely missing the point of redo. The only reason CMake has generators for anything but ninja is because some people worry about portability to other systems and as such having make is better than nothing.