Premakes

Premakes are a type of meta-build system used in software development, primarily in game development. A premake script, written in Lua, describes the build configuration of a project. This script is then processed by the premake executable to generate native build files for various platforms and toolchains, such as Visual Studio solutions, Makefiles, Xcode projects, and Ninja files. The core purpose of premake is to provide a single, unified source of truth for project configuration, abstracting away the complexities of different build environments.

Using premake allows developers to define project settings like source files, include paths, preprocessor definitions, and linker options once, and then generate the necessary build files for different operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux) and compilers (MSVC, Clang, GCC) from that single definition. This significantly streamlines the build process, especially for projects targeting multiple platforms. It reduces the need to maintain separate build files for each combination of platform and compiler, minimizing errors and development time. Premake's scripting capabilities also enable more complex configurations, such as conditional compilation based on build settings or platform-specific adjustments.