# Ruby-based equivalent to SCons?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 8, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139 "2010-02-08T22:12:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/aca169/32.png) [@nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nicksnels)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139/1 "2010-02-08T22:12:00Z")

</div>

First of all, I’d like to point out that while the “What does this Ruby  
code do?” CAPTCHA when signing up at [ruby-forum.com](http://ruby-forum.com) is admittedly a very  
clever idea, it’s a bit of a pain for Ruby novices like me. You have to  
know Ruby in order to get help on Ruby? Anyway, I don’t mean to say that  
just to complain, I just felt it worth pointing out.

My main question is actually pretty simple: Does anyone know if there is  
a Ruby-based tool/library that’s comparable to SCons?

(For those who don’t know, SCons is a Python library (plus a helper  
tool) that serves as a much cleaner/saner (at least IMO) alternative to  
makefiles. But, although I’ve never actually written any Ruby code  
before (yet), I’ve looked into the syntax and from what I’ve seen I like  
it _much_ better than Python.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/aca169/32.png) [@nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nicksnels)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139/2 "2010-02-08T22:47:37Z")

</div>

The standard is Rake.

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 9:12 PM, Nick S. \<

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/aca169/32.png) [@nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nicksnels)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139/3 "2010-02-09T01:14:36Z")

</div>

Rake and SCons aren’t exactly comparible. Rake is a tool for writing  
common  
tasks while SCons is better to be compared with autotools or cmake, a  
C/C++  
build tool.

For C extensions, there is rake-compiler that automates a bunch of stuff  
for  
you and works on all platforms. Other than that it’s either been  
setup.rb or  
doing it yourself.

Jason

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/aca169/32.png) [@nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nicksnels)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139/4 "2010-02-09T10:26:37Z")

</div>

Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:

> Jason R. wrote:
> 
> > Rake and SCons aren’t exactly comparible. Rake is a tool for writing  
> > common  
> > tasks while SCons is better to be compared with autotools or cmake, a  
> > C/C++  
> > build tool.
> 
> Rake can be a build tool too. Some Java developers are using it instead  
> of Ant.
> 
> > For C extensions, there is rake-compiler that automates a bunch of stuff  
> > for  
> > you and works on all platforms. Other than that it’s either been  
> > setup.rb or  
> > doing it yourself.

Thanks, all. Rake seems to be working fine for my current purpose  
(automating the build process for a somewhat complex  
HaxePHP/HaxeFlash/swfmill/misc-custom-tools project). As a bonus it’s  
also giving me a good feel for Ruby.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/aca169/32.png) [@nicksnels](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nicksnels)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-based-equivalent-to-scons/183139/5 "2010-02-09T01:48:46Z")

</div>

Jason R. wrote:

> Rake and SCons aren’t exactly comparible. Rake is a tool for writing  
> common  
> tasks while SCons is better to be compared with autotools or cmake, a  
> C/C++  
> build tool.

Rake can be a build tool too. Some Java developers are using it instead  
of Ant.

> For C extensions, there is rake-compiler that automates a bunch of stuff  
> for  
> you and works on all platforms. Other than that it’s either been  
> setup.rb or  
> doing it yourself.
> 
> Jason

Best,  
–Â  
Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid