.files VS discord-plays-pokemon

I think I'm the only person insane enough to use a makefile for this.

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/blob/master/GNUmake...

https://www.matheusmoreira.com/articles/managing-dotfiles-wi...

It even supports the XDG stuff.

I (ab)use make to manage my dotfiles.

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/blob/master/GNUmake...

I'm surprised at how well this thing works every time I use it. I even blogged about it.

https://www.matheusmoreira.com/articles/managing-dotfiles-wi...

Recently made a tool that processes the make database and prints the phony targets and their dependencies:

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/blob/master/~/.loca...

I use it as a sort of makefile help command. Works surprisingly well too.

The real makefile that I use and wrote about has some features that I didn't get around to describing in the blog post. Also has a ton of comments.

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/blob/master/GNUmake...

The metaprogramming template I described is used to implement XDG Base Directories. The links take the XDG variables into account while the real files live in their default locations inside the repository.

Android allows you to swap the virtual keyboard. I use unexpected keyboard which is also free software. It's excellent for programming. Before that I used Hacker's Keyboard which has actual arrow keys.

Termux also has a configurable bar at the bottom where you can map any keys you want. I use it for function and arrow keys plus a bunch of common symbols.

Here's an example from my dotfiles:

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/blob/38565320fefb92...

Make is excellent if you use it properly to model your dependencies. This works really well for languages like C/C++, but I think Make really struggles with languages like Go, JavaScript, and Python or when your using a large combination of technologies.

I've found Earthly [0] to be the _perfect_ tool to replace Make. It's a familiar syntax (combination of Dockerfiles + Makefiles). Every target is run in an isolated Docker container, and each target can copy files from other targets. This allows Earthly to perform caching and parallelization for free, and in addition you get lots of safety with containerization. I've been using Earthly for a couple of years now and I love it.

Some things I've built with it:

* At work [1], we use it to build Docker images for E2E testing. This includes building a Go project, our mkdocs documentation, our Vue UI, and a ton of little scripts all over the place for generating documentation, release notes, dependency information (like the licenses of our deps), etc.

* I used it to create my macOS cross compiler project [2].

* A project for playing a collaborative game of Pokemon on Discord [3]

IMO Makefiles are great if you have a few small targets. If you're looking at more than >50 lines, if your project uses many languages, or you need to run targets in a Docker container, then Earthly is a great choice.

[0]: https://earthly.dev/

[1]: https://p3m.dev/

[2]: https://github.com/shepherdjerred/macos-cross-compiler

[3]: https://github.com/shepherdjerred/discord-plays-pokemon