I think the requirements for the build system include:
* Needs to work on Windows, Linux, and OS X.
* Needs to generate Visual Studio (2005, 2008) project files for Windows.
* Needs to be portable to the more common Linux distributions.
* Needs to be efficient - clean builds and incremental builds shouldn't be much slower than the current make system on Linux and the VC++ build system on Windows, since (at least in my opinion) long build times are really painful and must be minimised.
* Needs to handle precompiled headers (for GCC and VC++).
* Needs to be relatively easy to maintain (adding source files, adding new project libraries, adding new external libraries).
* Possibly other things that I can't think of right now.
I worked with CMake and SCons, and I think CMake is really a good choice.
For example, KDE Desktop wich is a really big C++ project now use CMake.
Performance are here, and it's very easy to maintain.
On thing you may have forgoten, it supports parallel builds (make -j3 for example).
Improve build system
in Game Development & Technical Discussion
Posted
I worked with CMake and SCons, and I think CMake is really a good choice.
For example, KDE Desktop wich is a really big C++ project now use CMake.
Performance are here, and it's very easy to maintain.
On thing you may have forgoten, it supports parallel builds (make -j3 for example).