Randy Marques
Eindhoven, Netherlands

Randy Marques Consultancy

Embedded Software Development

www.randymarques.com

Randy Marques Consultancy was discontinued on December 21^st, 2019
But... GBS will remain in development.
Will be moved - with sources - to an Open Source location - mid 2021

Generic Build Support (GBS)

Documentation & Downloads

Reliable Builds - Flexible, Simple, Fast

Conceived and created by Randy Marques, GBS is a powerful generic build system for software development that helps increase the reliability of your software projects and introduces a uniform way of working.

TRANSFORM BUILD AUTOMATION AND REINFORCE THE WAY YOU BUILD SOFTWARE.
DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF WITH THIS GENERIC BUILD SUPPORT OFFERING.

GBS, Build Automation Done The Right Way

Software Development teams have come to believe that build problems are really a trick of the trade.

The problems entail project and application specific directory structures, questionable system integrity, exploding numbers of supported application variants and insufficient support for additional code auditing tools.
All too often the solution is found in complex scripts, involving 'make' magic beyond the common grasp. The net result? No one dares to touch the 'make file', in fear of breaking what essentially already is broken.

There is a way out though...

Basic Fact

Software development accommodates changing product requirements and conditions over time.

Basic Need

To manage software build diversity that inevitably grows in order to facilitate this.

Misconception

Build problems are a necessary evil that come hand-in-hand with ever increasing diversity in a software development environment...

Key Benefits of
Generic Build Support:

A simple, consistent and powerful build mechanism
Multi-platform support
100% reliable builds with fully compliant make files
Suitable for any size of Software stack/system
Independent from Configuration Management System
Simple in use, easy to learn
The end of Build Systems being a bottleneck

Adaptable - Transparent - Simple - Unified

What Others Say

"The most compelling reasons for us to use GBS are:

the 100% reliability of every build
the ease of building multiple variants of an application
as part of our common IDE, that our engineers can move from project to project with ease"

Peter Janssen,
Test and Configuration Manager
RIALTOSOFT Automotive Engineering Services

"..for me the most remarkable aspects in using GBS are:

the ease of adding new components during development
the uniformity in building components, throughout the system.
the ease of generating an overview of dependencies between components
the ease of defining the scope of a component
even with its predefined structure it allows for the integration of 3rd party software
An added benefit is that it can be used to guard the architecture. I promote the usage of GBS for every project I partake in."

Ronald Linders,
Build Manager
Philips Applied Technologies

GBS, The Concept

First and foremost, GBS brings a change of focus. It is rooted in simplicity and consistency.

GBS, The Agreements

GBS enforces and supports a common way of working. Making knowledge transferable from project to project.

A Predefined Directory Structure

Everything has its place. Thus freeing creativity for where it is truly needed: Creating the application!

Application Independent

GBS supports every kind of application. Yes, even your-multi-site-never-done-before-one-of-a-kind-application.

The End Of User-written-scripts

Say farewell to the days of updating the scripts for every new variant and or situation.

GBS is fully transparent in structure and usage ensuring that you yourself will never have to write a build-specific script again.

Scope Control

Easily enforceable, both on Component and Subsystem level.

Multi-platform Generation

Concurrent generation for multiple platforms using a single work area.

Fully traceable and trackable to every build option used for the generation of that platform.

In fact, GBS represents the end of the familiar "dependency hell"!

GBS, The Offering

Fully implement GBS in your organization including:

Assessment of the current environment
Setup of GBS
Training of all team members
Support and maintenance

Contact

Randy Marques: Contact

Is GBS useful for me?

If you develop software for a single platform and you use a sophisticated IDE like Visual Studio: Probably not.
If you develop in a 'make' environment (also Eclipse): Probably
If you develop for more than one platform: Definitely

There are may other tools available, why should I use GBS?

GBS forces the same way of working in terms of project layout and procedures

Every project looks the same. Everything has its place.
Same way of working for all projects

Customization is very limited
You do not write scripts or complex customizations
Full backward compatibility

Details

Generic Build Support is a way of setting up a directory structure combined with generic scripts to accommodate Build Automation for almost any kind of software project.
Building information is kept in dedicated files enabling automatic generation of make files, independent of platform or SCM System.

The key aspect of GBS is the directory structure.
Its rigid and strict[1] nature makes sure that everything has its place so that it can be easily retrieved and it is assured that any GBS command will run on any SubSystem created according to the GBS Directory Structure rules.
This directory structure makes it easy to swap and/or share software between projects (interchange ability) and ensures an unified way of working.
And yes: where needed there is all the freedom you need!

You can run GBS parallel on Windows 10, Windows 10 WSL and Linux systems, sharing the same physical directory structure.
Although not tested: There is no reason why GBS should not run on Unix or Windows 7>

[1]Rigid and strict really means that no deviations are allowed.

Latest Versions

The latest build version is: 6.01_2021-03-20

Features

Fits perfectly in an Agile environment
Fully portable and relocatable directory structure
Multiple platform support: Windows 10, Windows WSL & Linux (Windows 7, Unix)
Same physical directory structure used for all platforms (on shared network-drives)
Generated, full compliant 'make' files
- 100% reliable (incremental) builds
- Generated Files Cross Reference
Allows subdivision into SubSystems and Components
Any number of SubSystems and/or Components
Any number of libraries and/or executables per Component
Strict applicable scoping rules
Support for embedded generation of 3rd party software
Integrated support for any compiler
Integrated support for SCA tools like QAC/QAC++, PC-Lint and C++Test
Support for multi-site environments
Command-line oriented
- Support for GUI integration (e.g. Visual Studio, Slick Edit, Eclipse, Notepad++)
Comprehensive GUI covering all GBS commands
Automated directory creation and structure setup
Independent from Software Configuration Management System (SCMS)
- SCMSs supported (for automated structure creation): Git and Subversion.
Built-in Parallel generation
Background generation ('at' jobs) with extensive log files
Prepared for tools like SoftFab, BuildForge, Hudson and CruiseControl
Uniform way of working
Simple in use. Easy to learn. Powerfully due to simplicity and consistency
Suitable for small, medium and large systems
Only dependent on Perl (Version 5.26.1 or later, preferably with PerlTkx)
- Note that for GBS Perl need not be in the PATH, so any use of other Perl versions is not disturbed
No, repeat No user written scripts

Customers