6 ms·

Neat, but I wonder what the motivation for this is. I assumed that for the majority of projects ninja itself adds little overhead to the total build time.

lmz 4y ago
Maybe it saves them from having to build a c++ compiler to build ninja.
- rleigh 4y ago
  Doubtful. Both GCC and LLVM are written in C++ so you have to build a C++ compiler irrespective of whether you actually want one! I suspect it's more that they don't like C++ and want to use C for everything. Whether that actually translates into a higher quality tool or a more performant tool, we can only imagine.
  - mburee 4y ago
    Ehhh, the creator also works on a minimalist Linux distro (Oasis) and one of their goals is to build with cproc (a C frontend for the QBE backend), all written in ISO C. He uses Samurai in his distro, so it all fits together pretty well
  - Rochus 4y ago
    You can just use a GCC version < 4.8 or something like e.g. TCC if you want to avoid C++. Though Ninja is implemented in a very moderate C++ style; I'm able to compile it even with GCC <= 4.8; it even seems to compile on pre-C++11 compilers.
    - hulitu 4y ago
      Compiling gcc <= 4.8 is an exercise in pain because it needs some kernel headers which were removed.
      - Rochus 4y ago
        Not a big issue for someone who maintains his own Linux version, https://github.com/oasislinux/oasis https://github.com/oasislinux/oasis.
ducktective 4y ago
C project, C build tool. There is also Muon [1] for Meson (Python). [1]: https://sr.ht/~lattis/muon/ https://sr.ht/~lattis/muon/
- Rochus 4y ago
  Muon is a very nice project; especially the bootstrap means are great; unfortunately it doesn't seem to run on Windows and personally I don't think that Meson is a much better system/language than e.g. CMake; otherwise I would have used Muon instead of implementing BUSY.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  I assume you're also not using a C compiler written in C++, thus neither clang, GCC nor msvc ?
  - ducktective 4y ago
    It's always beneficial if some people choose to follow idealistic routes ;) There are minimal C compilers written in C around, though, admittedly, not as relevant as GCC/clang/MSVC
    - jcelerier 4y ago
      > It's always beneficial if some people choose to follow idealistic routes ;) As much as I believe this to be true in politics, I think it's really really wrong, if not actively harmful, in tech

lmz 4y ago

Maybe it saves them from having to build a c++ compiler to build ninja.

rleigh 4y ago
Doubtful. Both GCC and LLVM are written in C++ so you have to build a C++ compiler irrespective of whether you actually want one! I suspect it's more that they don't like C++ and want to use C for everything. Whether that actually translates into a higher quality tool or a more performant tool, we can only imagine.
- mburee 4y ago
  Ehhh, the creator also works on a minimalist Linux distro (Oasis) and one of their goals is to build with cproc (a C frontend for the QBE backend), all written in ISO C. He uses Samurai in his distro, so it all fits together pretty well
- Rochus 4y ago
  You can just use a GCC version < 4.8 or something like e.g. TCC if you want to avoid C++. Though Ninja is implemented in a very moderate C++ style; I'm able to compile it even with GCC <= 4.8; it even seems to compile on pre-C++11 compilers.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    Compiling gcc <= 4.8 is an exercise in pain because it needs some kernel headers which were removed.
    - Rochus 4y ago
      Not a big issue for someone who maintains his own Linux version, https://github.com/oasislinux/oasis https://github.com/oasislinux/oasis.

ducktective 4y ago

C project, C build tool. There is also Muon [1] for Meson (Python). [1]: https://sr.ht/~lattis/muon/ https://sr.ht/~lattis/muon/

Rochus 4y ago
Muon is a very nice project; especially the bootstrap means are great; unfortunately it doesn't seem to run on Windows and personally I don't think that Meson is a much better system/language than e.g. CMake; otherwise I would have used Muon instead of implementing BUSY.
jcelerier 4y ago
I assume you're also not using a C compiler written in C++, thus neither clang, GCC nor msvc ?
- ducktective 4y ago
  It's always beneficial if some people choose to follow idealistic routes ;) There are minimal C compilers written in C around, though, admittedly, not as relevant as GCC/clang/MSVC
  - jcelerier 4y ago
    > It's always beneficial if some people choose to follow idealistic routes ;) As much as I believe this to be true in politics, I think it's really really wrong, if not actively harmful, in tech