SCons is an Open Source software construction toolthat is, a next-generation build tool. Think of SCons as an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to Autoconf/Automake and compiler caches such as Ccache. In short, SCons is an easier, more reliable and faster way to build software.
=Advantages=
Configuration files are Python programming language scripts--use the power of a real programming language to solve build problems.
Reliable, automatic dependency analysis built-in for C Programming Language, C plus plus and Fortran--no more make depend or make clean to get all of the dependencies. Dependency analysis is easily extensible through user-defined dependency Scanners for other languages or file types.
Built-in support for C Programming Language, C++, D programming language, Java programming language, Fortran, Yacc, Lex, Qt and SWIG, and building TeX and LaTeX documents. Easily extensible through user-defined Builders for other languages or file types.
Building from central repositories of source code and/or pre-built targets.
Built-in support for fetching source files from SCCS, RCS, CVS, BitKeeper and Perforce.
Built-in support for # Visual Studio .NET and past Visual Studio versions, including generation of .dsp, .dsw, .sln and .vcproj files.
Reliable detection of build changes using MD5 signatures; optional, configurable support for traditional timestamps.
Improved support for parallel builds--like make -j but keeps N jobs running simultaneously regardless of directory hierarchy.
Integrated Autoconf-like support for finding #include files, libraries, functions and typedefs.
Global view of all dependencies--no more multiple build passes or reordering targets to build everything.
Ability to share built files in a cache to speed up multiple builds--like ccache but for any type of target file, not just C/C++ compilation.
Designed from the ground up for cross-platform builds, and known to work on Linux, other POSIX systems (including AIX, BSD/OS, HP/UX, IRIX and Solaris), Windows NT, Mac OS X, and OS/2.
=Sample SConscript=
Program( main.c )
When the user runs the scons command, scons will build a main executable (on Linux) or main.exe (on Microsoft Windows).
=History=
SCons began life as the ScCons build tool design which won the [http://software-carpentry.codesourcery.com/ Software Carpentry] SC Build competition in August 2000. That design was in turn based on the [http://www.dsmit.com/cons/ Cons] software construction utility. This project has been renamed SCons to reflect that it is no longer directly connected with Software Carpentry (well, that, and to make it slightly easier to type...).
=External links=
[
http://www.scons.org/ SCons Home Page]