[Scons-users] Can SCons do this?

[Ross Bencina]

On 15/01/2013 6:06 AM, Anton Daneyko wrote:

> Dear SCons users, I wonder if I can use SCons as a build system. Here

> is a description of what I want it to do and I want to hear from you

> if this is worth it.

>

> I work on a small C++ project (less than 30 files).


For a project of this (small) size I would do one of two things:

1. Just keep separate VS and SCons scripts.

2. Run SCons as a "makefile target" from within VS. That way all the 
build steps are done with SCons. You can just add your files to the VS 
project manually so they are available easily in the editor.

I took a middle path and wrote a project sync target that takes the 
dependencies from scons and live-updates the VS project file -- eg if 
you add a file to the sconscript it updates the VS project *without* 
completely regenerating it. I think that script is floating around, I 
know other people have used it. It only works for VS2005 though. I still 
use VS "makefile target" to perform the builds.

Having worked that way for a few years on a medium size project (~1000 
modules) my conclusion is that (2) is fine. I work that way with 
XCode+Scons for example.

I guess one reason to try to do a full project generation using VS to 
manage builds is that the builds might start a little faster -- but if 
you want to separate project generation from building you may as well 
use CMake or some other system hat is designed for two-phase generate + 
build. The advantage of SCons is that everything is in one place and 
there is no generate step.

Ross.