Makefile or IDE?

pozz · 2021-12-02T11:46:48+00:00

When I download C source code (for example for Linux), most of the time I need to use make (or autoconf). In embedded world (no Linux embedded), we use MCUs produced by a silicon vendor that give you at least a ready-to-use IDE (Elipse based or Visual Studio based or proprietary). Recently it give you a full set of libraries, middlewares, tools to create a complex project from scratch in a couple of minutes that is compatibile and buildable with its IDE. Ok, it's a good thing to start with a minimal effort and make some tests on EVB and new chips. However I'm wondering if a good quality commercial/industrial grade software is maintained under the IDE of the silicon vendor or it is maintained with a Makefile (or similar). I'm asking this, because I just started to add some unit tests (to run on the host machine) on one of my projects that is built under the IDE. Without a Makefile is very difficult to add a series of tests: do I create a different IDE project for each module test? Moreover, the build process of a project maintained under an IDE is manual (click on a button). Most of the time there isn't the possibility to build by a command line and when it is possible, it isn't the "normal" way. Many times in the past I tried to write a Makefile for my projects, but sincerely for me make tool is very criptic (tabs instead of spaces?). Dependencies are a mess. Do you use IDE or Makefile? Is there a recent and much better alternative to make (such as cmake or SCons)?