CakeBuild is one of the advanced automation systems with a C# DSL to do things like compiling code, copying files/folders, running unit tests, compressing files, and building NuGet packages. You can run from the command line or integrate it into your build system. The recipes are written in C# and consist of tasks that get executed in a particular order. You can think of a task as a single action, such as compiling code or creating a zip file. Tasks can also depend on each other, making them easier to write and debug.
It can be used from the command line, as a build-in Visual Studio, or as a build server plugin in TeamCity and Jenkins. Each build target defines a set of commands that can be run by specifying the target name on the command line. A build target defines one or more “targets,” which are simply collections of commands that are executed when you run the target. You can view all of the available targets by listing all properties in “dotnet.cake”.
CMake is an open-source, cross-platform tool that uses compiler and platform-independent configuration files to generate native build tool files specific to your compiler and platform. It is used to control the software compilation process using simple platform and compiler-independent configuration files. It generates native makefiles or works with existing tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio. It supports all common platforms, compilers, and toolsets like Xcode, Android SDK, Qt, Makefiles, IDE Visual Studio, Eclipse CDT, etc.
It will find out what is needed based on the information supplied in the CMakeLists.txt file and configure it correctly for the software being built. CMake generates native build tool files by translating information into a high-level model. It can be used in many ways: as a cross-platform build environment, as a build configuration utility, or as a software development kit (SDK) generator. It was designed to be as non-invasive, open, and transparent as possible, unifying the common build problems using simple modular inputs.
Gradle is one of the smart automation tools for multi-language software development. It supports building Java, Scala, Groovy and Android applications, and more. It lets you define flexible, reusable build configurations easily, at any scale, and in any language.
It gives you the freedom to implement your build any way you want while also giving you the option and flexibility to integrate with centralized build services such as Maven and Ivy. The software is written in Java and has a command-line user interface, and is based on plugins, to support different languages and tools. By using its powerful APIs, it lets you maximize the delivery capabilities of your software, which is not present in any other traditional platform.
Meson is a cross-platform build system that focuses on code quality and maintainability. It supports architecture and operating system abstractions, per project multiple compiler toolchains, and incorporates elements of various software configuration management tools. It provides excellent support for embedded development. For a long time, building software manually has been very tedious and error-prone, especially when compared to other engineering disciplines such as building hardware or C&C. For example, software engineers rarely are forced to use nonstandard fasteners or solder parts together.
Meson is a software tool for automating the building (compiling) of software. It builds on top of existing build tools, such as CMake and Autotools, adding modern tooling such as unit testing. It brings together tasks for checking code quality and generating files into an integrated system that has a simple declarative syntax, so you can focus on your project, not your build.
Ant is an all-in-one software tool for automating software build processes. It should run on any platform that supports Java 1.4 or later and is widely used with Java projects. It has a multitude of pre-written tasks that can be imported into your own project as required. It has been widely adopted in the open-source community as well as internal development teams of large corporations because it is easy to extend and embed. It is particularly helpful for building projects in highly diverse environments, where different toolsets and languages are used for development and testing. It can manage the dependencies between toolsets and languages for the programmer.
Ant’s implementation is mainly in Java, with some supporting classes written in C. The default task library can be extended using XML files for configuration and any Java classes for implementation details. It was initially based on the original build tool from the Java developer kit. Ant usage has largely been supplanted by Apache Maven and Gradle due to their enhanced usability and flexibility, but the ant is still the most popular build tool in the Java ecosystem. It provides a software development platform for writing complex, multi-language software build processes, particularly in environments where there are hundreds or thousands of computers involved.
Buck is an open-source development platform with two major aims: help developers create smaller, more reusable modules that don’t necessarily rely on full-blown frameworks, provide tooling that helps developers write more reliable and performant code. It provides a platform for creating modules that are reliable, reusable, and performant. The Buck developer experience consists of a build system and a package manager.
It is used primarily by web application frameworks and is server-agnostic: equally useful for Node.js, Ruby or Python applications, or any other application you might have. The module system in Buck is designed to encourage small, reusable modules consisting of code and resources. This makes it easier for a developer to write and maintain a complex application, whether it’s a Java applet or a multi-process C++ daemon, or anything in between. Buck encourages the creation of small, reusable modules consisting of code and resources and supports a variety of languages on many platforms.
SBT is a build tool inspired by Apache Ant and Apache Maven and developed to be a very practical tool that is used by countless companies for building Scala and Java projects, including Twitter, LMAX, JetBrains, and Foursquare. It is an open-source build tool for Scala and Java projects that uses a declarative file and task-based API to describe a project, its dependencies, and its build configuration. It can build JVM-based projects ranging from simple Scala applications to full-blown enterprise servers and services.
The range of supported types of projects is quite broad: Scala, Java, Scala.js, Java, Play Framework apps, Lagom Microservices, Spark applications, Android apps, and more. The heart of SBT is a family of tasks that the user specifies to describe how a project should be built, the project’s dependencies, and any actions needed before or after building. Such tasks are typically specified in the form of .sbt files, which are interpreted by the SBT task engine to produce the final build definition. It enables setting up incremental compilation and testing and offers a command-line interface with tasks similar to Ant and Maven. It is written in Scala, but the user interface is designed to be language-agnostic.