Products · Broad category
C build systems
Raised as a usability problem by 11 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2011–2026), in 10 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Builds break with cryptic errors, requiring manual system configurationUnreviewed
20112026- Each C/C++ project needs different manual build steps and cryptic errors, causing frustration2026-02-15
- C projects are hard to build, with undocumented dependencies and awkward build tools2023-07-20
- Builds keep breaking across make versions, compilers, platforms and linkers2022-01-05
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 12 complaints
- Each C/C++ project needs different manual build steps and cryptic errors, causing frustration2026-02-15
- Makefile projects don't work with IDE language servers without a hard-to-export compile-commands list2025-11-18
- C projects are hard to build, with undocumented dependencies and awkward build tools2023-07-20
- Builds keep breaking across make versions, compilers, platforms and linkers2022-01-05
- C builds break with cryptic errors, so users must manually configure their systems to build2022-01-05
- Having to juggle many build tools; Raylib install failed despite documented Make commands2021-03-16
- Editing, compiling and running separately adds friction and slows the feedback loop2020-07-14
- Figuring out how to build projects on each platform wastes time2020-03-08
- Build process is cluttered and not streamlined, so users must relearn make or cmake each time2016-12-02
- Build systems are broken and dependency management becomes very hard to get working2013-01-10
- Default build settings fail on Macs, and debugging each build system takes too long2013-01-10
- Shared library paths are confusing: copied binaries fail, many config settings needed to find libraries2011-07-03