Conan, a distributed, open source package and dependency manager, promises to bring C and C++ into devops.
The multiplatform package manager builds and shares native binaries. Conan’s ability to quickly create builds, port packages, and run them on different operating systems (Windows, Linux, MacOS, and FreeBSD) helps make C and C++ suitable for devops, said Harry Manley, a senior solutions engineer at JFrog, which sponsors the Conan project.
C and C++ provide fragile builds, where it is difficult to re-create the build when moving from one system to another. Conan helps to overcome these limitations, Manley says. Developers specify dependencies on libraries, and Conan finds the libraries in a remote repository based on architecture, operating system, and platform and makes them available to a build, with build systems incuyding Visual Studio MSBuild and CMake.
While intended for C and C++, Conan can manage builds from source, dependencies, and precompiled binaries for any language.
Where to download Conan
You can download Conan from the project’s website.