Software Build Systems: Principles and Practice

An up-to-the-minute expert guide to the concepts and tools needed to construct reliable and efficient software build systems Brings together best practices for implementing successful build systems, managing them, and improving them for many years to come. Reviews advantages, disadvantages, and key techniques for using Make, Ant, SCons, CMake, and Eclipse build tools. Shows how to create scalable build systems for large projects, reduce complexity, and streamline the build process. Developers waste far too much time dealing with tool-related build problems: time that ought to be spent productively writing and refactoring code. Unfortunately, the knowledge required to construct and improve build systems has typically been limited to a few build gurus with expert knowledge of tools such as Make or Ant. Now, one of them has distilled the industrys best practices into a single book that can be used by anyone responsible for constructing, maintaining, or improving build systems, regardless of their experience. Peter Smith explains what build systems can and should do, and how to avoid the pitfalls often associated with them. Next, he thoroughly introduces several leading tools, including Make, Ant, SCons, CMake, and Eclipse, covering basic syntax and usage; more complex programming techniques; common build system scenarios; advantages, disadvantages, and more. Each key concept is accompanied with practical examples relevant to all C/C++, Java, or C# developers. The book concludes by introducing advanced functions and tools for scaling up build systems, reducing complexity, managing build size, and accelerating the entire build process.