makesure VS run_lib

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

Cool suggestions. I actually wrote something like lk in bash, and used it for several years before writing lk. I called it run_lib. Like lk it also lists functions and their comments as a sort of documentation. It didn't allow fuzzy search though.

I grew frustrated with the compromises of makefiles for this and over the years I wrote a couple of alternatives, run_lib[1] and lk[2]. Now I write files full of the bash functions I need and use lk to explore and execute them. I.e. it's a consistent interface accross projects.

[1] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/lk

[2] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/run_lib