# Ninja multi-config is overly complex

**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/ninja-multi-config-is-overly-complex/684
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [February 22, 2020, 6:04am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/ninja-multi-config-is-overly-complex/684 "2020-02-22T06:04:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 9

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### Author: ![craig.scott](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/craig.scott/32/20_2.png) [@craig.scott](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/craig.scott)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2020, 11:31am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/ninja-multi-config-is-overly-complex/684/9 "2020-02-25T11:31:42Z")

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At the risk of taking this too far, I wonder if we should also consider using `CMAKE_DEFAULT_BUILD_TYPE` to provide the initial value for `CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE` for single-config generators (if not set already)? This could be an opportunity to stop making an empty build type the default on single config generators and instead have it be `Debug` (which is what people typically assume it actually is). We could do this under the control of a policy to preserve backward compatibility.

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