Yeah unfortunately there probably isn't a "best practice". I think there are just many types of projects and their needs vary. I think a big issue is what your dependencies are.

This person mentioned Ruby + Ninja, and I similarly used Python + Ninja (borrowing the ninja_syntax.py from the Ninja repo itself).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32303692

I'd say if you can get away with it, using a real language like that is straightforward and good. If you have a low level project that doesn't depend on anything (like a shell or VM :) ), then it will probably work.

I admitted I probably had to rewrite a small portion of the "120,000 lines of CMake" that ships with CMake, in Python. And that took some time, but it ended up working well for my needs.

If you have a big project with lots of dependencies (especially optional / detected ones), I think that is probably where CMake or Meson is better. They both use Ninja, but I haven't used them myself.

---

But I would also say that there aren't many best practices around GNU make either. The usage spans a very wide range... And lots of people generate it too, like Ninja -- kconfig for the Linux kernel generates GNU make, etc.

autotools and CMake both generate GNU make too. It's a big mess, but I think Ninja is a good foundation for at least not "starting with a mess" :)