makesure VS Buck

makesure, a similar tool (https://maximullaris.com/makesure-vs-just.html) I'm developing, doesn't require installation in the traditional sense: https://github.com/xonixx/makesure#installation.

Also, I was considering adding the same feature (generating the equivalent shell script) to my tool, but after doing some analysis decided not to pursue this idea for the following reasons: https://github.com/xonixx/makesure/issues/83#issuecomment-98....

Another simple tool similar to this is makesure[1]. It’s written in shell so the idea is you include makesure itself in your repo, which avoids needing to install another tool to run commands on your project.

It’s very simple so isn’t good for everything, but works well as a simple command runner.

[1] https://github.com/xonixx/makesure

- mawk (https://invisible-island.net/mawk/) - bundled in some Linux distros (?), known as the fastest byte-code compiled implementation.

All three have very good compatibility, but Gawk is super-set over POSIX standard. I have some evidence here, since I regularly test [1] against these implementations and even some others, like GoAWK.

[1] https://github.com/xonixx/makesure/actions/runs/1830978431

I've been using make to do this for ages, but its syntax really shows its age in a bad way. A while ago I switched to just (https://github.com/casey/just), which is a simple command runner with less unnecessary cruft (for my use case as a command runner) and a much saner syntax, and I've been pretty happy with it so far, I hardly ever need to look up anything.

There's also task (https://taskfile.dev/), which is YAML-based and might work well in an environment where everything else is YAML anyway, and makesure (https://github.com/xonixx/makesure), which is pretty similar to just, but didn't really click with me.

yes, there is also https://github.com/xonixx/makesure - It is a simple task/command runner inspired by make with declarative goals and dependencies.

Idempotence is achievable elegantly with makesure tool [1] using @reached_if directive [2]. Full disclosure - I’m the author of the tool.

[1] https://github.com/xonixx/makesure

[2] https://github.com/xonixx/makesure#reached_if

Hyper-large tech companies managing hyper-large monorepos using Bazel (google), buck (Facebook), please (thought machine), pants (Twitter, Foursquare & Square) enjoy them but also have a lot of resources devoted to running and maintaining it.

We use Buck company wide. Our packaging / deployment system, for example, expects to be given a Buck target to build, not a pre-built binary - I can’t just build my app with dotnet and upload it. While it is possible for a Buck target to be a simple bash command (i.e dotnet publish), doing so makes the target “opaque” - Buck wouldn’t have any knowledge of my app’s build graph so I’d lose many of the benefits it gives us (incremental cached builds etc.)

Oh excellent, then better (and more portable!) tools are available:

http://pants.build

https://ninja-build.org

https://buck.build

and, if you hate yourself: https://bazel.build

I’m feeling sorry for everyone affected.

Let’s hope that this isn’t going to impact Buck [0] too much. It’s one of the best things Facebook has ever made.

[0]: https://github.com/facebook/buck/tree/dev

Pioneered by tech giants like Google and Meta with tools like Bazel and Buck, monorepos are seeing widespread adoption across companies of all sizes and industries.

Buck has a http_file() that you can use this way, and it has first-class support for Java.

That's a good bridge into saying that we don't use pretty much any standard tooling. Our build system is Buck, we use Mercurial instead of Git, and the IDE of choice seems to be Visual Studio (although Android Studio is supported, with some custom plugins required).

Didn't know it was python based. Their github repo shows 90% of the code is java, only 2% is python. Regardless, C++ build systems should be written by people who are familiar with C++ and the specific problems they need to solve. That means the build system should be written in C++ or C and not in java, lua, or python. I certainly do not want to install python just to build my C++ programs in a CI environment, it just increases my build complexity and attack surface

The landing page of https://buck.build/ explains some of the most basic stuff. This Meta Engineering blog post summarizes some of the deeper optimizations possible through buck: https://engineering.fb.com/2017/11/09/android/rethinking-android-app-compilation-with-buck/