Makefile vs ISE?

[Pack34]

What are the benefits to using a makefile to compile some HDL versus just using the IDE? Is it just faster or are there additional benefits to a more manual method?

[ataradov]

It is not going to be faster, but you will have more control over the process. Plus Makefiles are easier to track through the source control system.

[SiliconWizard]

Other benefits include automated builds and the possibility of adding any extra steps during build, for instance the execution of test benches.

[ejeffrey]

Faster or slower is entirely a question of which does a better job of correctly computing the needed recompilations and extracting the maximum parallelism.  Makefiles are frequently not very good at this.  Either triggering unnecessary compilation steps or missing implicit dependencies that require the occasional "make clean."  If the dependency graph is poor enough that developers learn to "always make clean" then you have pretty much eliminated the entire purpose of make and could just use a shells script.  IDEs can be bad at this too, but are probably better than most hand built Makefiles.

[ataradov]

For ISE this is not a factor at all. Even if there is incremental synthesis, it is managed by ISE itself.

[NorthGuy]

I guess this is IDE not ISE.

That's a question of preference. IDEs have lots of useful features, but also lots of "in your face" features. The speed difference is negligible unless your IDE is horribly slow.

[ataradov]

In combination with HDL, I would guess it is ISE (Xilinx).

[legacy]

ISE + ModelSim is an example of a scripting environment