How I learned to love build systems

Why in the world did they want me to run ./configure?

Contents
00:00 How Amos fell into the magic potion
04:44 "Real" Windows development
07:23 Enter CMake, then Meson
10:34 Now scale it up
14:15 Be humble, stay curious
15:28 Obligatory tunes of the chip

[Whatthetrash]

I have no idea how you got on my YouTube recommended feed, but I'm oh so glad you did. Fantastic, clear, informal videos that honestly excite me to go out and learn -- which is an incredible resource. Subscribed... and thanks for what you do! :)

[neilweidinger]

Fantastic video, really mirrors my experience of going from the comfortable but illusory plug-and-play nature of clicking buttons in an IDE to understanding the intricacies and complexities of building source code for multiple platforms

[CyborusYT]

"I also write articles that are equally long"

Well-

[Chalisque]

Back around 1997, I used to walk to/from university (around 3 miles each way) with a Zip drive and 2 or 3 Zip disks to download stuff that I could take home in my bag, configure, make, run. Seemed so amazing at the time that I could even do that, compared to how it was before with 1.44M floppies. 256MB USB sticks circa 2005 were magic.

[terrypark]

I thought this was going to be tips on what you have to learn to build systems but it literally was how you learned systems. It's amazing and helpful to hear your journey!

[chickenscrap]

Kudos to you for keeping a good attitude about them and even coming to appreciate them! I’m at a point in my career where I understand why they’re needed, but dread every minute I spend modifying a jenkins file/web config.

It’s time that I should be spending on the actual problem I’m trying to solve.
Don’t think I’ll ever be able to say I love them.

[pnuema.]

This is a fantastic video. Its educational and gives a clean abstracted overview of build systems. Personally I find that abstracted overview is hard to come by because most people convoluted the general overview of what a build system does. The only issue I have is your title. I searched for "most used build systems" and found this video but I think this video belongs more in the "what is a build system and why do I need one" category which I feel like your title excludes you from. Either way I am happy I found this video!

[velvetrock]

As a DevOps I recently encountered a sort of build engineer(ish) task of gluing together a C++/ML desktop app, which allowed me to make a deep dive into build systems during work hours. Started to read a blog of a Ninja-build creator, Professional CMake book, etc. Man, build systems stuff is sooo interesting, deeply cool / technically beautiful and at the same time not unappreciated/ viral enough!

Thank you for spreading the word and chad content in general!

[coderedart]

"Part of the answer is that, games are not food" @ 2:29

- FasterThanLime

[whatamievendoing]

Well, it was fun to watch you do such a deep dive into this niche software dev topic. Very informative stuff, thanks for sharing!

[torphedo]

I've loved CMake ever since I started using it. It's awesome to be able to have a simple, easy to read project file that can also manage all my unit tests and build for both Windows and Linux

[Seandotcom]

I knew nothing about build systems until I got into embedded development. I fumbled around with SCons for a bit but now have learned to love CMake. Great video!

[theNoriLi]

ah this was great! "car no go space, cargo road" will be stuck in my head for a while :P

[MechMK]

I vividly remember when I first started to play around with Linux and the command line in general, I was very overwhelmed by it. I was also the only one in my family who had any computer experience at all, so if something wasn't working, I had no one to rely on. It was unpleasant, but it also taught me alot of stuff.

[namgnoi]

reflecting a bit what have me drawn to these kind of "lower-level" tools like the cli and vim, was a kind of appreciating of exposure to these, often difficult, parts to lessen the uncomfortableness of leaky abstractions. and on further reflection it gave me confidence that I so felt the need for, quite often as a coping mechanism for feeling most of the time insignificant from childhood events. now after more or less being able to move beyond that need I find myself sensing a more natual curiosity emerge to explore these dimension. Thank you for this video which had much value in it for me.

[DougAnderson]

"There's only one of you, so make it last" -- love it!

[rxphi]

You know that you're on the right path to becoming a computer expert if this video shows up in your feed, loved it😊

[WhosShamouz]

Lol I thought this video was about how you're gonna takle a task with a certain framework, thinking in systems or whatever, but I also enjoyed what you had to say :) Noted the quoted regarding accidental complexity, amazing!

[quorrafromtron]

This video would've been so useful like 5 years ago, I went through pretty much the same learning process (even started with a ti84 lol)

[elietheprof]

I think most of these complex build systems exist to solve real problems that should have never been created in the first place.