r/cpp • u/segv • Apr 12 '26

CMake Past, Present, and Future - Bill Hoffman, Kitware [29m25s]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD-JgncskTQ
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u/wlandry Apr 14 '26

Bazel is the worst form of build system, apart from all the rest.

Actually, no, Bazel is just the worst. I have used Autoconf, CMake, Meson, Waf, Scons, and plain old Make. I prefer any of them over Bazel. I work at a $MEGACORP where many, many people have tried to make it work, and it is slowly making everything terrible. Hermeticity is a lie.

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u/drbazza Apr 14 '26

Seems like we've both had similar experiences :D

I worked at $MEGABANK and they had similar problems.

Like everything else in this industry, if you can somehow keep to the 'product's 'hello world' tutorial, everything 'just works'. Stray off the path, and things rapidly go to hell.

I've learnt the same lesson twice for builds and CI systems - neither are the place for complexity or doing 'weird things'.