Why so many build techs?

[playgithub]

e.g.

• cmake
• conan
• meson
• vcpkg

What abou t cmake only?

[Framstag]

What about meson only ;-)

The actual reasons:

• we started with make and dropped it in favor of cmake, since it was better, simpler and faster
• we then made use of meson because it was just more of it: much simpler and thus better - and sometimes slightly faster
• we did not drop cmake, because cmake integration into IDEs (Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code and CLion) is much better still. If you ask me, I personally would drop cmake, if IDEs catch up. But people may have different opinions.
• we made use of conan and vcpkg because we had installation and dependency management problems under Windows. Getting the few dependent libraries installed, build and compatible is a major pain.
• vcpkg is currently the winner, but requires local builds of everything (though this might change). conan claims to be better, but the last time I checked, it did not work better. So vcpkg is the way to go.
• Note that conan and vcpkg are not build tools, but dependency management tools.
• We did not drop conan (but didn't test or maintain it either), because things may change.

Hope that helps.

[playgithub]

For building techs, it's better if it can save developers' energy, e.g. easy to use.
vcpkg meets the demands.

I think few people like cmake, but they have to learn cmake, anyway cmake can be used easily, and vcpkg can be used even more easily, and cmake is friendly with vcpkg.

BTW, for meson I'd like to try it.