Re: ocamlbuild (was Re: [Caml-list] Re: GODI is shutting down)

[Jeff Meister <nanaki@gmail.com>]

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I have a codebase that currently depends on an old version of OMake, and I
would rather use ocamlbuild instead. As an end user, I see two key
advantages: ocamlbuild is part of INRIA's official OCaml distribution,
which implies a certain level of commitment to continued support, and
ocamlbuild knows all about how to build OCaml projects (even using
ocamlfind), so for simple applications it "just works".

However, I was reluctant to look into ocamlbuild when it first appeared,
since the only documentation was a set of presentation slides. It seemed
powerful, but like you, I am not really interested in build systems. I'm
more encouraged now that a section has appeared in the OCaml manual. Aside
from that, are there any other resources I should look into? I'm wondering
if there are some documents, or even mailing list threads, that would help
me learn how to customize the building of a complex codebase like you just
did in the "which ocaml build system" thread? I'm hoping there is a way to
acquire this knowledge that doesn't involve trial and error with the build
system. :)


On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com
> wrote:

> I am not very interested in build systems. I use one (ocamlbuild) that
> I find decent (has several known areas of improvement, but bear with
> me), and instead of rewriting a new one from scratch¹ I decided that
> maybe the existing one I could be improved to fix its shortcomings.
> You know, by writing bug reports, and more importantly proposing
> patches (to the code or the documentation), instead of just
> complaining on the mailing-list. I'm not aware, so far, of a major
> design problem that can't be incrementally fixed, and whose resolution
> is worth the pain of switching to a completely new system.
>
> ¹: or juggling with three different unannounced build systems; I think
> you forgot Jenga and the various adaptations of redo for OCaml; nobody
> added OCaml rules to Shake as far as I know, but certainly that will
> happen in the future.
>
> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 3:14 AM, Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp>
> wrote:
> > On 07/26/2013 05:03 AM, Adrien Nader wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I believe this entry on the bugtracker is worth mentionning:
> >>    "ocamlbuild should expose common interface as a library"
> >>    http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=5869
> >>
> >> More generally, ocamlbuild's development was mostly stalled but has
> >> restarted recently. This should allow fixing many issues and
> >> shortcomings.
> >
> >
> > There is not only ocamlbuild!
> >
> > I would love to see projects such as obuild:
> >
> > https://github.com/vincenthz/obuild
> >
> > come out of the woods (like an official release announce if it is
> > ready for mass consumption) and become the de facto gold standard.
> >
> > PS: even OCamlPro have written a tool to replace ocamlbuild
> >     (ocp-build)...
> >
> >
> > --
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>
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