Yes, Zyn started from the simple frustration of needing 50+ lines of boilerplate just to try a GitHub library. My answer was: for most projects, that level of complexity isn't necessary. So I built a tool that does the common 80% use case in 1% of the effort. One line of config, and you're ready to go.
When is CMake or Conan legitimately appropriate? Absolutely — when you're working with complex multi-platform targets, ABI constraints, custom toolchains, or need deep CI/CD and IDE integration. Those tools are mature and powerful for a reason.
What do you lose by using Zyn today? Mainly fine-grained control: custom build steps, cross-compilation, binary caching, platform-specific configs — Zyn doesn't try to solve all that (yet). It's intentionally minimal.
But here's the key part: We do plan to grow in that direction. Future versions of Zyn will support IDE project generation, CI/CD workflows, cross-compilation setups, and even plugin extensibility. The goal is to keep the simplicity, while expanding capability.
For now, Zyn is a productivity-first tool — and I think there's room for that in the C/C++ ecosystem.
And what answer did you reach? When is it legitimately appropriate? What do we lose out on by using your utility that these older tools do take care of?