Overview

The Better Product Builder

In software development, product building is the process of converting source code into a machine-executable product. Typically, source code is integrated using a build process, which is repeated many times over the course of development. As such, the efficiency of the build process directly affects the productivity of the development team.

An efficient build process is one that does the minimum work necessary to construct a new version of a product. Alcatel-Lucent nmake is designed to perform this task. Years of expertise in solving product building problems have been captured in the latest version of nmake; let it begin making a difference for your project team.

Features

• Distributed and parallel execution supports product builds on both single processor and multiprocessor machines, which can be distributed over a network of workstations.
• Viewpathing allows each developer to share code while maintaining private development areas.
• Automatic dependency generation determines implicit prerequisites dynamically by means of a programmable scanning language.
• Powerful rule language uses variables, flow control and built-in attributes to allow fine tuning.
• Efficient shell interface allows communication with the shell over a pipe or network pipe. Actions are passed to the shell in a block without intervening backslash and semicolon characters.
• Project-specific and user-specific rules facilitate the creation of concise, consistent and flexible makefiles.
• Efficient makefile processing minimizes work by compiling makefiles and remembering the previous build status.
• Language Support for source files written in almost any language (C, C++, Java, ESQL/C, assembler, M4, FORTRAN, troff).
• Continuing improvement incorporates research in configuration management into future releases.

Benefits

Project teams have used nmake to:

• Reduce project build effort by a factor of 1.5 to 2 because less effort is needed to write and maintain makefiles.
• Decrease fork and exec times by a factor of 2 to 5 due to the efficient shell interface.
• Decrease large makefile processing time by a factor of 10 when targets are up to date.
• Reduce disk space by a factor of 2 due to viewpathing.
• Decrease makefile size by a factor of 5 to 10.
• Reduce build times by a factor of 4 to 6 through parallel target script execution and remote building in a local area network.

Alcatel-Lucent nmake has a long, proven track record, and has been used successfully in hundreds of projects within Alcatel-Lucent and AT&T.