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https://github.com/dosmike/mybcp

My Bootstrapper for Cpp Projects
https://github.com/dosmike/mybcp

build-script cmake conan cpp

Last synced: 21 days ago
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My Bootstrapper for Cpp Projects

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README 

        
# MyBCP



My Bootstrapper for Cpp Projects is a set of scripts intended to ease the pain to 

get a CPP dev environ up and running and managing dependencies.



### MSVC / GCC + CMake + Conan + Python Venv



## HowTo



Copy the build.bat, build.sh and build_py files into your repository, run build.bat / build.sh



```

usage: MyBCP [-h] [--rebuild] [--cmake-args CMAKE_ARGS [CMAKE_ARGS ...]]

             [--vs-dir COMPILER_PATH] [--build-dir BUILD_DIR] [--devshell]

             [--build-type {Release,Debug}] [--update]



Cpp tool wrapper and loader for Windows



options:

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

  --rebuild             Delete build directory and build clean

  --cmake-args CMAKE_ARGS [CMAKE_ARGS ...]

                        Arguments to pass to cmake. These are appended at the

                        end.

  --vs-dir COMPILER_PATH

                        Path to visual studio installation. If not specified,

                        it is detected automatically

  --build-dir BUILD_DIR

                        Subdirectory to build in

  --devshell            Start a new command prompt in a complete dev

                        environment. The venv is active and MSVC is

                        discovered, so you can manage python packages load

                        your IDE or whatever

  --build-type {Release,Debug}

                        Debug build type might enable debug symbols and other

                        features

  --update              Update MyBCP from GitHub

  --install             Install the package into the local conan cache

                        (requires a conanfile.py)

```



## Rant



The main issue I have with CPP dev on Windows is, in one word: Libraries.



While you can get started pretty easily with CPP, using only the standard library and a 

compiler + IDE like MSVC / Visual Studio, it is really annoying to find libraries, sometimes

they come without binaries, and then add include and lib path as well as the library name 

to the project for every build varaint and platform in Visual Studios is annoying.



Adding a build system like CMake to the mix eases this pain immensely, but this also requires

another tool to actually manage those available dependencies, because that's not the 

responsibility of the build tool.



I feel like this it is not controversial to say, that the tooling around C++ compared to

modern languages is really lacking on Windows. It is bearable on Linux because you can install

packages and build tools through the system package manager and everything is exposed through

dpkg and other built in utilities.



The situation on Windows is so bad, that the recommended way to use dependencies is to install

a linux environment to manage packages and tools, like MinGW, Cygwin, WSL, ... and suddenly

you are probably using GCC/CLang on Windows instead of MSVC because the build environment 

handles those better.



Languages like JavaScript, and Python show how easy it could be to get started with install

packages that include runtime, build tools and package manager at once, all developed from

an official place. Yes, the ecosystem around C++ has those features, but as a new dev I

don't want to install Python, because I want to install a package manager, to download the 

dependency, so I don't have to write another implementation of linked lists. It feels like

a lot of hoops to jump through, especially on Windows, and that has killed my interest in

various projects for me.



But I guess I would not be a software developer if I didn't try to solve my problems with code!



This script will ease that set-up pain and create an opinionated template environment:

* Windows: Find a working compiler (MSVC 2019 and 2022 are supported)

* Linux: Require build-essential for gcc

* Get a package manager and build system up and running (Conan+CMake)

* Generate template build configs

* Build the damn thing and give access to a dev env shell



On Windows it will search MSVC, as in the most recent installed version.

The package manager is Conan, with CMake as build system. Conan has a wide variety of 

packages with the JFrog repository and the website tells you what to poke to get a dep into

CMake. It is simple enough for beginners while still offering flexibility for more complex

projects.



From there on, subsequent runs of the build script will search MSVC, load the dev env,

so Conan and CMake can find the compiler, make sure the dependencies are installed and

run you average CMake build.