[thechao]

I really like the idea of Ninja; I really want Ninja to be a single C(++) file that I can build with a trivial command line. I don't want a single C(++) file because of "elegance" so much that I want to ship Ninja as an inline dependency but now I've got two problems: I have to build my code and I have to build Ninja. If Ninja was a single file: boom! Trivial build line.

Other than that, I think Ninja is perfect.

[stormbrew]

You could probably post-process samurai (a rewrite of ninja into C) into a single-file: https://github.com/michaelforney/samurai

[Too]

Ninja precompiled is a self contained 200kb single file binary.

Small enough to even checkin into git. Your compiler, cmake and all the other tools you use is going to be a much bigger problem.

[megous]

ninja is normal part of Linux distros. So at least there you don't have to worry.