Section 5.6. Comparison of Build Tools

5.6. Comparison of Build Tools

Table 5-2 briefly summarizes how each of the six build tools described in this chapter compare to the suggestions at the start of Section 5.5, earlier in this chapter, about what to look for in a build tool. This table summarizes the observations of the previous section, which discussed each tool in more detail. A plus sign (+) indicates a strength and a minus sign (-) indicates a relative weakness.

Table 5-2. Comparison of build tools

Requirement	Shell scripts	make	GNU Autotools	Ant	Jam	SCons
Dependency checking	-	-	+	+	+	+
Fast and smart	-	-	-	+	+	+
Independence from local environment	-	-	+	-	+	+
Variant builds	-	-	+	+	+	+
Multiple platforms	-	-	+	+	-	+
Easy to read and write build files	-	-	-	+	-	+
Scales well, parallel builds	-	-	+	-	-	+
Debugging/readable output	-	-	-	+	-	+
User community	-	+	-	+	-	+