[Help Wanted] Rewrite build scripts in modern scripting language

[0x1mason]

Build automation is mostly in batch, which, well... sucks. It's also not cross-platform, which is a barrier to supporting .NET Core/Mono. The build scripts should be re-written using one of the following, in rough order of preference:

• msbuild
• bash. Will need instructions in README for Windows users on how to add bash to PATH from Git for Windows, GnuWin32 tools, or other source.
• pure python3 or Ninja
• NodeJS gulp
• CSScript
• Ruby Rake
• gradle
• PowerShell Core (i.e., cross-platform)

If you want to use make, Scala, groovy, etc, I'm open to it. Anything other than batch.

[jnyrup]

I like Cake

Cake (C# Make) is a cross platform build automation system with a C# DSL to do things like compiling code, copy files/folders, running unit tests, compress files and build NuGet packages.

[HGCapacitor]

I did not look into the build system into detail, I agree that batch scripts is a bad idea ;)
Still what is the benefit in altering the build system as long as a NuGet package is produced. I do not think building in batch scripts interferes with targeting .net core (and making the NuGet package platform agnostic).
Moving away from the batch script will allow building the code on different platforms only.
And probably moving away from the batch scripts before upgrading to .net core will probably be less painfull.

In short:
-Allow building on multiple platforms (by moving away from the batch scripts) seems not a very interesting step to me at the moment
-Reduce the pain of configuring the build (by moving away from the batch scripts) is slightly more interesting, but I would currently put more weight in supporting BUFR files over upgrading to later .net frameworks
-I agree to putting msbuild on top of the prefered list
-As always please correct me if I am wrong!

[jnyrup]

@HGCapacitor For me the main point in moving to a dedicated build system is robustness and descriptive error messages, when some dependency is missing or fails to run.

[0x1mason]

@HGCapacitor Agreed. I don't care that much as long as it is cross-platform, command-line friendly, and scriptable.

[0x1mason]

This issue was moved to #8