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mesonbuild
meson
Python2015–2025
mesonbuild / meson

meson

The Meson Build System

Developer Tools
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17Distinct people
18Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
6.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

The Meson Build System

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

Looking at the examples from using Clang (I use GCC btw.): clang++ -std=c++20 Hello.cppm --precompile -o Hello.pcm clang++ -std=c++20 use.cpp -fmodule-file=Hello=Hello.pcm…

ho_schi used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year18 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-09-01 16:51:53 UTC to 2025-09-11 13:51:36 UTC.

012342015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20152016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

18 sources
ho_schi·Sep 11, 2025Recommendation phrase
Looking at the examples from using Clang (I use GCC btw.): clang++ -std=c++20 Hello.cppm --precompile -o Hello.pcm clang++ -std=c++20 use.cpp -fmodule-file=Hello=Hello.pcm Hello.pcm -o Hello.out ./Hello.out Why is something which shall makes things easy and secure so complicated? I'm used to: g++ -o hello hello.cpp It can use headers. Or doesn't use headers. I doesn't matter. That's the decision of the source file. To be fair, the option -std=c++20 probably isn't necessary in future. I recommend skimming over this issue from Meson: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/5024 Reading the last few blog posts from a developer of Meson, providing some insights why Meson doesn't support modules until now: https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/
In C++20 Modules: Practical Insights, Status and TODOs
helloiamsomeone·Apr 2, 2024
> As far as I can see, the best choice for writing bootstrap-related software in 2024 is still C99 That seems a bit silly, since going from ISO C99 to C++ is only one more build away[0] and from there you can practically build the whole world as you please. > CMake is absolutely out Considering how hostile Meson is to platforms other than *nix[1], I doubt there is any realistic alternative here. > I still haven’t forgiven it for deciding that the space-separated output of pkg-config meant it was a “list”, then emitting that list as a semicolon-separated string into my build commands. I'd be curious where the issue opened by the author is, since this would be a pretty big problem if it was truly an issue. The CMake module processing the output of pkg-config is also just using an existing CMake command[2], so the impact would be greater tha
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n just pkg-config related code if there really was an issue. [0]: https://blog.dave.tf/post/finding-bottom-turtle/ [1]: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/8153 [2]: https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/blob/f8ba5b12ca842c...
In Which Build Tool for a Bootstrappable Project?
saurik·May 2, 2022
And yet, meson just routinely doesn't work. Sure: if you are just trying to do some trivial local compile job it seems fine, but it keeps having issues with even trivial cross compilation cases (which are used even on Linux as you generally want to do a Linux-to-Linux cross compile to control your glibc target) and linker detection (as it is assuming way too much direct control over the linker that it should frankly be delegating to the compiler) that make you have to jump through ridiculous hurdles to make things compile (and that's assuming you aren't on one of the commonly-deployed semi-recent versions of meson where it is a truly lost cause). In contrast, autotools always works: I have never had a blocking or serious issue compiling something that uses autotools, no matter how complex the scenario. Here are a couple issues I have run
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into (one being fixed, though too late for some key versions of Ubuntu; and the other just languishing, as I guess "working" is asking for too much). https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/6057 https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/6662
In Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the GNU Autotools
potus_kushner·Aug 21, 2021
the approach of meson to hardcode the properties (including the name of the main executable!) of each and every compiler in the universe seems pretty short-sighted if not outright dumb and isn't quite how the designers of UNIX, the C language and compiler toolchains envisioned a build system to work. if meson was properly designed, a user could just run `CC=whatevercc meson ...` and it would work with basically each and every single compiler available on *NIX and every POSIX compatible environment, including gcc, clang, tcc, cproc and even within cygwin. the only compiler i know that works differently is MSVC and it would be easier to just provide a wrapper that transforms POSIX-compatible compile command lines into ones that MSVC understands. (this reminds me of the head-desk approach CMake takes to adding library dependencies: each libr
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ary has a hardcoded configuration file, which can go as far as scanning your /usr/lib for libfoo.so rather than just assuming "-lfoo works, and if it doesn't, use $PKG_CONFIG --libs foo"...) the author of cproc actually filed an issue report in 2019 pointing out this very fallacy, which is still open: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/5406
In Cproc C Compiler
ParadigmComplex·Feb 1, 2021Recommendation phrase
> Hi and thanks for reaching out to the community here. You're welcome :) > As a poweruser. What are the benefits of this best of all worlds approach, and when might I need them? If you run into a situation where: - The distro that best fits your use case is lacking some functionality you desire - Other distros provide that functionality - The alternatives proposed in this HN thread (compiling from source, alien, chroots/containers/etc, third-party package managers) are insufficient. Compiling from source (`./configure && make && sudo make install`) also means manually maintaining the package for things like security updates, which can be tedious; chroots/containers/etc don't integrate with the rest of the system very cleanly; third-party package managers have limited package coverage (compared to the breadth of the repos of the many di
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stros Bedrock supports); etc Bedrock might be a worthwhile solution. Some concrete real-world examples I've personally run into: - I generally prefer "stable" distros like Debian or CentOS, in contrast to the churn cutting-edge rolling-release distros like Arch and Void are built around. However, when I get new hardware, I usually need a newer component from another distro, which I usually get from Arch or Void. When I purchased a new printer, I need a new cupsd; when I purchased an AMD Zen 2 CPU and was interested in temperature data, I needed a new kernel; etc. - Of the major init systems maintained by a notable distro, I prefer Void Linux's runit. However, as previously mentioned, I prefer non-rolling workflows, which limits my interest in Void. Bedrock lets me easily get init related things from Void and get other things from Debian et al. - Some years back I attended a LUG meeting which had lightning talks on X11 window managers. Newly purchased laptop in hand, I volunteered to present compiz. I found - with only minutes until my time slot - that Debian's Xorg stack was too old to work on the new laptop, but Arch's compiz was apparently broken. Had I run either Debian or Arch, I wouldn't have been able to present compiz during my time slot. Since I ran Bedrock, I simply installed Arch's Xorg stack and Debian's compiz. - While developing Bedrock's 0.7.0 release, I found libfuse 3.0 switched from a make-based build system to meson. Debian's meson was too old ("Meson version is 0.37.1 but project requires >= 0.38."), and Arch's meson 0.44 was too new and included a bug [0] that kept it from sufficing for libfuse. Since I was running Bedrock, it was easy for me to find a goldilocks (0.42.1) version from Debian Testing. - For both school and work, I've been required to run software which assumes a RHEL-like environment. These had things like `#!/bin/sh` scripts that use bash-isms, which don't work on distros like Debian that do not symlink /bin/sh to bash. Bedrock easily lets me run this software against CentOS/RHEL while still letting me easily get the rest of the system from other distros. - I have personal patches against some packages, such as mupdf. Gentoo makes maintaining these packages with my patches trivial, as portage dutifully applies them when updating packages. However, I don't have the patience for Gentoo to compile the bulk of my system. [0] https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/2761 > I genuinely am curious and considering trying Bedrock out. I just can't see what workloads I need it for. My recommendation is to simply keep Bedrock in the back of your mind as a possible solution to issues you run into going forward. If you end up stumbling upon enough uses cases, consider it. If you don't, you might very well be better off with some other OS. Most distros exist as they do for good reason, and they suffice for most users. Bedrock targets a fairly niche audience. If/when you do try it, I recommend trying it out in a VM or spare machine before using it in production, to make sure it does what you expect it to do.
In Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution
saagarjha·Jul 16, 2020
This was the extent of the changes necessary to get Meson working on the system-provided Python: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/commit/85686e21d78a587de.... Surely that is not a "Stone Age tool"? The people doing the work right now to get foundational stuff working are doing that precisely to aid the porting efforts of the many, many developers that will depend on those things working in a few months when they have to port their own codebases.
In Introducing Swift Service Lifecycle
berti·Oct 11, 2019
Last time I checked meson still doesn't have great Qt support e.g. it can't track rcc dependencies [0]. Funnily enough that issue is about rcc not making dependencies available to the build system, but I believe it actually started doing so somewhere down the track. I did a little work on it a couple of years back but regrettably never followed up [1]. [0] https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/blob/27c01dff01832fa9d0c... [1] https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/97#issuecomment-3...
In Bazel Release 1.0

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