I tried to see what was xmake's value proposition, but even xmake's site fails to present anything. Writing something in Lua is far from a compelling reason to switch a build system.
Why would anyone use xmake over cmake?
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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I think it's mostly a cultural thing? I see most Chinese devs prefer xmake, probably out of solidarity because its devs are also Chinese.
As for me, I also don't see the appeal in xmake. CMake, coupled with ninja, just works and for many popular libraries there's a great chance that you can add them to your project simply by doing a find_package because of how popular CMake is. The build systems landscape in C++ is already messy enough and I don't see how introducing yet another CMake-like would improve things. What we need is more .cmake files for popular libraries.
I'll give some bullet points that might be of interest, I agree that they need a funky infographic or similar.
-
it's a build system itself, it doesn't need make or whatever and compilation speeds are similar to ninja
- which means it can do things like distributed building
- and implement local caching, like ccache but supporting msvc as well as gcc/clang (actually msvc might be disabled at the moment)
- .. likewise remote caching, like Mozilla's sscache for teams (again supporting msvc/gcc/clang)
-
it has its own package manager but also works with pretty much all other popular package managers
- the build system will default to any matching installed system libs unless you say otherwise (
{ system = false}on a per-included package basis) - it downloads and installed necessary packages when first building a project
- package manager can use pre-compiled Windows artefacts
- can use the hosted online repo, or our own online or local repos (multiple if we want)
- location of alternative repos can be set in xmake.lua file or configured on command line (or config file).
- the build system will default to any matching installed system libs unless you say otherwise (
-
can configure project with a TUI menu
xmake f --menu
It just feels more straightforward and logical to me too. I know that's subjective, but the objective part of that is it's a unified build system, cache system and package manager that sets out to work with other tools.
(edited: tidied bullet lists)
it’s a build system itself, it doesn’t need make or whatever and compilation speeds are similar to ninja – which means it can do things like distributed building – and implement local caching, like ccache but supporting msvc as well as gcc/clang (actually msvc might be disabled at the moment) – … likewise remote caching, like Mozilla’s sscache for teams (again supporting msvc/gcc/clang)
So it offers nothing over cmake, and at best it matches features already offers for ages, such as transparent support for compiler cachês and distributed compilers.
it has its own package manager but also works with pretty much all other popular package managers –
That lies somewhere between matching cmake's features, and placing users in a losing proposition with its own package manager.
can configure project with a TUI menu xmake f --menu
Not only is this irrelevant but it is also something cmake provides.
Also, cmake is the de facto standard and supported natively by IDEs such as Visual Studio.
Knowing this, why would anyone bother with xmake?
So it offers nothing over cmake...
In your opinion, I'd say the overall integration and being an actual build system are offerings for starters.
It also supports other languages like Zig, Pascal and Rust too. Here's an example of C++ calling Rust, note the easy inclusion of Cargo crates...
https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake/tree/dev/tests/projects/rust/cxx_call_rust_library
xmake is just nicer, more concise and 100% less shouty. People in general use cmake because it's the de facto standard, not because they like cmake and its DSL.
xmake can generate cmake files too so it's not going against the grain. There are plugins for popular IDEs as well.
xmake is just nicer, more concise and 100% less shouty.
Not really. It's yet another build system whose main aspiration is to eventually match cmake's capabilities but missing all the reasons that made cmake the de facto standard, such as the declarative straight to the point way of specifying targets.
And yet lots of people use xmake and other alternatives....
lots of people use xmake
Define "lots".
Also, your weekend pet project is not the same as a corporation's cash cow.
Close to half of C++ developers in that survey regularly use something other than CMake and I've seen projects at Microsoft and Epic Games use xmake. Why are you being such a pecker?
I currently find known C/C++ build systems and package managers lacking. Maybe this is caused by the high bar by Cargo. Its nice to see something similar to Cargo in C/C++ ecosystem. vcpkg and conan are a pain in the ass in my opinion
Yup, Cargo is a good baseline to compare to. I don't get the CMake arguments since:
- xmake isn't trying to replace CMake
- xmake can create CMake files from an xmake project
- xmake can consume CMake files
- xmake can use CMake packages
- you can use xmake packages in a CMake project
- a lot of people quite obviously don't like CMake
It's working with the ecosystem, not against and is good for C++ especially since people are comparing C++ building with tools like Cargo now.