(feature request) premake

[ColleagueRiley]

Would it be possible to include premake along with the devkit? It could be a useful addition, but I understand if it's not aligned with this project's values.

Thanks for this amazingly lightweight development kit!

[skeeto]

I appreciate that you took time to make this suggestion. Even if I don't do anything differently, it's worth the investigation and perspective. I'm aware of premake, but I've never used it, not even to build someone's project. Nor do I expect to ever start using it. Except for some esoteric BusyBox apps, and rarely-tread corners of libstdc++, I regularly use all the tools in w64dk myself. That's how I observe breakages, and ensure it all integrates properly. If I'm not using something, it's not going to be well supported. That's enough for me not to include it. However, it would be nice if it could be built with w64dk, so that users could always build their own given the source code. Indeed, I just did so, confirming that it works, though it wasn't trivial. Besides this, Premake distributes an official, no-nonsense, 32-bit premake5.exe, which is a good sign, so it's already trivial to obtain it if you want it. Unlike some build systems, it has a sensible extension language (Lua), which is why it can be so self-contained and distributed so effectively. Hats off to them! As for building it with w64dk, the build system only officially supports x86 Windows, in two configurations: release_win32 and debug_win32. In both cases it uses "-m32" which causes builds to fail in x64 w64dk. Also the documentation incorrectly states to use CONFIG=x64, but only CONFIG=debug or CONFIG=release work. So to build it for x64 I had to modify gcc.lua to delete the "-m32" from the "architecture" strings so that it would work. Then: $ CC=cc make -f Bootstrap.mak mingw And I got my own premake5.exe. So instead of including it in w64dk I'd prefer to get this little build hiccup sorted upstream.

[ColleagueRiley]

I recently started using premake because it's a nice, fast, and efficient alternative to CMake that integrates well with other build systems (Visual Studio Solutions and Make).

You make a good point that you don't use Premake, so it will be hard for you to ensure its maintenance. Dogfooding is a great way to ensure software quality. So I understand if you don't want to include it in the devkit.

At some point, I would like to make a fork of this repo at some point and include some of the tools that I use, that don't make sense to be included in this repo.

@skeeto Please have a look:

premake/premake-core#2386

You can definitely build a 64 bit version of Premake.

BTW, instead of building from source, you can always download the latest binary build of Premake:

https://premake.github.io/download

[skeeto]

Thanks, @Curculigo. I understand the documentation typo now. Currently when you try to build, it suggests:

CC=mingw32-gcc mingw32-make -f Bootstrap.mak mingw CONFIG=x64

https://github.com/premake/premake-core/blob/903b3aa3/Bootstrap.mak#L56

Which doesn't work at all per above. What it meant to say is:

CC=mingw32-gcc mingw32-make -f Bootstrap.mak mingw PLATFORM=x64

And of course in w64devkit you omit the CC= part.

@skeeto Since CMake is now included in the devkit, is it time for Premake?

[Peter0x44]

Cmake is better than premake 🚎

Cmake is better than premake 🚎

Yes, but some fantastic projects use only Premake. Premake also has its own fanbase, doesn’t it?

p/s: w64devkit is the officially supported build environment on Windows for this project, which uses only Premake:

https://github.com/SpartanJ/ecode

A standard w64devkit includes everything needed to start the build immediately, except for Premake itself.

The project’s developer is a fan of both Premake and w64devkit!

[ColleagueRiley]

Cmake is terrible, but it's more commonly used.

[Peter0x44]

I've used premake a few times before and sent them patches including the subject of my first blogpost.
premake/premake-core#2039

Keeping this open as a reminder to myself to follow up when I'm bored, but I don't think there's desire to include it in w64devkit.

[skeeto]

I don't think there's desire to include it in w64devkit.

Yes, at this time I still do not intend to include premake.