Re: Alternative build systems

[Óscar Fuentes]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Apart from better performance, CMake would simplify the scripts a great
>> deal.
>
> Not IME, not with the many complications and different configurations
> we support.  E.g., does Gnulib support CMake builds?

When I made the CMake build system for LLVM/Clang, it was about 1.5
orders of magnitude less verbose than the autoconf-based system for
feature parity.

CMake has the advantage of being procedural (like an ordinary scripting
language) and declarative (like `make'). This makes possible to use a
high level of abstraction that helps a lot when dealing with complexity.

For the Gnulib question, I can't answer, I don't know what it involves.
A quick web search says that Gnulib is tightly tied with autoconf and
messages like this are a bit gloomy:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2019-08/msg00091.html