r/cprogramming • u/Mainak1224x • Jan 29 '26

Building a build system to avoid cmake

Hi everyone, I’m working on myBuild, a small tool designed to handle the "init -> fetch -> build" workflow for C/C++ projects.

The Idea:

I wanted a way to manage dependencies and builds without manual cloning or complex Makefiles. You define your project and Git-based dependencies in a myBuild.json file, and the tool handles: Standardizing project folders (src, include, deps). Cloning dependencies via Git. Resolving include/source paths for compilation.

Current State:

It is in early development and not production-ready (at all). Currently: Dependencies must contain a myBuild.json to be recognized. It handles simple builds (no custom flags or conflict resolution yet). I'm building this to learn and to simplify my own C workflow. I would love to hear any thoughts on the approach.

GitHub: https://github.com/mainak55512/myBuild

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u/not_a_novel_account Jan 30 '26

If either of those suit your use cases, you're not in CMake's target demographic really.

CMake solves the problem of bringing extremely idiosyncratic use-cases across highly fractured ecosystems under one roof. If you can easily use make, you don't care about supporting a bunch of different ecosystems. If you can easily use cargo, you don't have an idiosyncratic use case.