Ninja Build System

Ninja is a small, focus-driven build system with a primary emphasis on speed, making it particularly well-suited for large, complex software projects like web browsers or operating systems. Unlike more feature-rich systems like Make, Ninja is designed as a low-level backend and is not meant for writing build scripts by hand. Instead, higher-level build configuration tools such as CMake, Meson, or gyp generate `.ninja` input files, which describe the exact commands needed to compile the project. This division of labor allows Ninja to do one thing exceptionally well: execute the build commands as quickly as possible, especially for incremental builds where its minimal dependency checking overhead provides a significant performance advantage.

1. Introduction to the Ninja Build System
   1. Overview of Ninja
      1. Purpose and Scope
      2. Historical Context and Development
      3. Key Design Goals
   2. Core Philosophy of Ninja
      1. Focus on Speed
         1. Design Priorities for Fast Builds
         2. Minimal Overhead Architecture
         3. Impact on Large Codebases
      2. Minimalist Design
         1. Simplicity of Configuration
         2. Avoidance of Built-in High-Level Features
         3. Explicit Over Implicit Behavior
      3. Role as a Low-Level Build System
         1. Delegation to Generators
         2. Comparison to Meta-Build Systems
         3. Backend vs Frontend Distinction
   3. Ninja vs. Other Build Systems
      1. Comparison with Make
         1. Syntax Differences
         2. Performance Characteristics
         3. Dependency Management Approaches
         4. Parallelism Handling
      2. Comparison with MSBuild
         1. Platform Support
         2. Integration with IDEs
         3. Configuration Complexity
      3. Comparison with Bazel
         1. Scalability Approaches
         2. Caching Strategies
      4. The Role of High-Level Generators
         1. Purpose of Generators
         2. Generator Examples
            1. CMake
            2. Meson
            3. GN
            4. Bazel
         3. Workflow Integration
   4. Key Use Cases
      1. Large-Scale Projects
         1. Chromium Project
         2. LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
         3. Android Open Source Project
         4. Other Notable Projects
      2. Projects Requiring Fast Incremental Builds
         1. Continuous Integration Environments
         2. Developer Productivity Enhancement
         3. Rapid Iteration Workflows
      3. Cross-Platform Build Requirements
         1. Multi-Platform Support
         2. Toolchain Flexibility