The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects • Hacker News Board

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#51

Post by jgh » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #45

jgh wrote: post #19

CMake is so nice compared to vanilla makefiles. I wonder if it can be used this way with Javascript.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I always assumed CMake was optimized for the C language (thus the name)? That's at least what I've always seen it used for. What would you gain if you're using it for other, less supported languages, like Javascript?

It lets you generate makefiles in a less verbose way. Like if you have a lot of files in a project or a bunch of targets Makefiles can get a bit unwieldy by themselves.

I've only ever used it for C++, but I don't see why it (or something like it) couldn't be used for other languages too.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#52

Post by Jtsummers » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28

rectang wrote: post #23

Make's interface is horrible. Significant tabs. Syntax which relies on bizarre punctuation... If only whoever authored Make 40 years ago had had the design acumen of a Ken Thompson or a Dennis Ritchie! We're stuck with Make because of network effects. I wish that it could just become "lost" forever and a different dependency-based-programming build tool could replace it... but that's just wishful thinking. The pace o…

Make is such a horrifically awful thing to work with that I just end up using a regular scripting language for building. Why learn another language with all its eccentricities and footguns when I already know several others?

Incremental builds. It's a pain in the ass to write this in a good, generic way yourself. If your build tools don't already understand it, then make (and similar tools) makes for a nice addition versus just a script that invokes everything every time.

EDIT: Oh, and parallel execution, but smart parallel execution. Independent tasks can be allowed to run simultaneously. Very useful when you have a lot of IO bound tasks. Like in compilation, or if you set it up to retrieve or transmit data over a network.

It's not too hard to do that in your custom script, but more care is required because until you custom script reaches make level internal complexity you will have to manually track dependencies or make sub-optimal assumptions.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#53

Post by look_lookatme » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28

rectang wrote: post #23

Make's interface is horrible. Significant tabs. Syntax which relies on bizarre punctuation... If only whoever authored Make 40 years ago had had the design acumen of a Ken Thompson or a Dennis Ritchie! We're stuck with Make because of network effects. I wish that it could just become "lost" forever and a different dependency-based-programming build tool could replace it... but that's just wishful thinking. The pace o…

Make is such a horrifically awful thing to work with that I just end up using a regular scripting language for building. Why learn another language with all its eccentricities and footguns when I already know several others?

I very much prefer Rake for orchestrating multiple build systems in a web project or dependency installation or just any sort of scripting. It comes with a simplified interface to shelling out that will print out the commands you are calling.

If for some reason the project is ruby allergic, I'll try to use Invoke [0].

Sometimes I feel like people's usage of Make in web projects is akin to someone taking an axe and hand saw out to break down a tree for firewood when there are multiple perfectly functioning chainsaws in the garage.

[0] http://www.pyinvoke.org/

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#54

Post by ethagnawl » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

jgh wrote: post #19

CMake is so nice compared to vanilla makefiles. I wonder if it can be used this way with Javascript.

I'll second this. I had to use CMake for the first time recently and was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

This tutorial was making the rounds (on HN and elsewhere) last week, but in case anyone missed it, here's a link: https://github.com/pyk/cmake-tutorial I found it to be a great primer/refresher.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#55

Post by isaachier » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #45

jgh wrote: post #19

CMake is so nice compared to vanilla makefiles. I wonder if it can be used this way with Javascript.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I always assumed CMake was optimized for the C language (thus the name)? That's at least what I've always seen it used for. What would you gain if you're using it for other, less supported languages, like Javascript?

CMake is mostly dedicated to C/C++ projects, but also has built-in support for assembly, Fortran, and Java. CMake has templates for adding a new language as well. The benefits are: cross-platform "shell" commands (you can copy files without using an explicit cp), standard lookup for programs, and easy target generation from a collection of files. Most languages are pretty similar to C/C++ when it comes to the build cycle. Portability (i.e. testing for existence of headers) is less of a concern for something like Javascript, but everything else still applies.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#56

Post by vetinari » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #40

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make is such a horrifically awful thing to work with that I just end up using a regular scripting language for building. Why learn another language with all its eccentricities and footguns when I already know several others?

Another advantage of using a scripting language is that the hard work of portability will already have been done for you by the authors of the scripting language. Make, in contrast, works within a shell and invokes programs which may be either wildly or subtly incompatible across platforms. Add in the lacking support for conditionals in POSIX make and portability is a nightmare.

On the other hand, make invokes well known shell commands; I already know what they do, when I see them used.

If you are invoking your functions (or functions imported from random library), I have to check them for what they do.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#57

Post by yoz-y » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

jgh wrote: post #19

CMake is so nice compared to vanilla makefiles. I wonder if it can be used this way with Javascript.

cmake is good but it is quite heavily geared towards C/C++ development. I would love to have some modern makefile with a bit nicer syntax. Fitting into 80 columns is no longer a must.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#58

Post by jofer » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #23

Make's interface is horrible. Significant tabs. Syntax which relies on bizarre punctuation... If only whoever authored Make 40 years ago had had the design acumen of a Ken Thompson or a Dennis Ritchie! We're stuck with Make because of network effects. I wish that it could just become "lost" forever and a different dependency-based-programming build tool could replace it... but that's just wishful thinking. The pace o…

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've always found its syntax to be quite nice (though admittedly a departure from most modern languages). Then again, I find using JSON or not-quite-ruby to configure a build incredibly bizarre and confusing, so I guess I'm just set in my ways...

In all seriousness, what's wrong with it? Significant tabs aren't great, but I feel like that's a relatively minor wart. The simple things are _very_ simple and straightforward. The more complex things are more complex, but usually still manageable...

I've seen plenty of unmanageable Makefiles, but I haven't seen another system that would make them inherently cleaner. (I love CMake, but it's a beast, and even harder to debug than make. If it weren't for its nice cross-platform capabilities, I'm not sure it would see much use. It's also too specialized for a generic build tool. Then again, I definitely prefer it to raw Makefiles for a large C++ project.)

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#59

Post by fao_ » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #23

Make's interface is horrible. Significant tabs. Syntax which relies on bizarre punctuation... If only whoever authored Make 40 years ago had had the design acumen of a Ken Thompson or a Dennis Ritchie! We're stuck with Make because of network effects. I wish that it could just become "lost" forever and a different dependency-based-programming build tool could replace it... but that's just wishful thinking. The pace o…

You should look up http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/mk

https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/

http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/papers/mk.html

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#60

Post by theothershoe » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

juliend2 wrote: post #2

One thing I've found useful about gulp and webpack is the fact that it's multiplatform. What is the best approach to make sure your Makefile will work as expected on every platform, meaning, windows included? For example: Can we write file paths using forward-slashes, or is it still an issue? I imagine running it via git bash (bash provided by the git installer on windows).

Good point - cross platform issues are a concern. I've noticed in the past that OS X machines tend to run older versions of Make (unless the owner has installed a newer version with Homebrew). It is a good idea to pay attention to the Make features that you use, understand which features were added in recent versions, and be aware of which features are specific to GNU Make. In my projects I recommend that users make sure that they are in fact using GNU Make.

Some systems might not support the `-p` flag in `mkdir -p`, or the `-rf` flags in `rm -rf`. There are scripts distributed on NPM called `mkdirp` and `rimraf` to work around such issues.