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The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

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Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#461

Post by rcxdude »

hzhou321 wrote: post #198
neonscribe wrote: post #178

I used make heavily in the 80s and 90s, but haven't much since then. Recently I started a project that had source files getting processed into PDF files, for use by humans. Since this is the 21st century, those files have spaces in their names. At a certain point, I realized that I should be managing this processing somehow, so I thought of using a simple Makefile. A little searching reveals that the consensus on usi…

Demanding the support of spaces in filenames significantly complicates code as simple space delimination no longer works and other delimination schemes are much more error prone -- forgetting balancing quotes, any one? While you are allowing spaces, you probabaly are allowing all possible code points or maybe even a null byte? Thinking about it gives me headaches. I hate hearing people using 21st century or modern as…

Not handling spaces is a symptom of a much deeper problem in common with a lot of 'unix' utilities: not actually structuring data apart from in ad-hoc string encodings. The fact that data can be so easy conflated with program structure is the cause of so many obscure bugs and overhead in using utilities that suffer from it it's a wonder anyone is defending this approach going forward.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#462

Post by rcxdude »

gonvaled wrote: post #329
to3m wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really - I have no particular opinion about what POSIX chooses to support or not. But I'm going to go back to my original point. What I do have an opinion about is how reasonable it is for tools not to support a character that is valid in file names, when that character is straightforward to support with everyday, well known syntax. And when that character is ' ', the standard English word separator, as strai…

Please write a makefile that uses an environment variable as a mysql password to connect to a mysql server and perform an arbitrary administrative task. Now do the same, assuming that the password can have a dollar in it. You can do it. It is not as easy, readable or maintanable. Avoid it if you can.

This represents a problem with make, not any other part of the system.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#463

Post by mnarayan01 »

eigengrau wrote: post #456
mnarayan01 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this program called make...

My question was aimed at ops generic statement. As for Make, it originally wasn’t clear to me where the issue was supposed to lie. Lines in rule bodies are handed off to the shell, and that whitespace in rule dependencies need escaping didn’t seem surprising since it’s a list (though it’s probably a bug that whitespace in target names must be escaped, since it’s just one token that ends in a colon). But I see now tha…

> though it’s probably a bug that whitespace in target names must be escaped, since it’s just one token that ends in a colon

It's perfectly fine for a rule to have multiple targets, e.g.

  output.txt error.txt: source
    build source > output.txt 2> error.txt

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#464

Post by user404d »

jgh wrote: post #19

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

I like this idea a lot. I personally don't like writing makefiles and so having nice build tools like cmake generate them for me is about as close to writing them as I want to get. Letting make stay as a low level building block for high level build tools seems like the right way to go.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#465

Post by eigengrau »

mnarayan01 wrote: post #463
eigengrau wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question was aimed at ops generic statement. As for Make, it originally wasn’t clear to me where the issue was supposed to lie. Lines in rule bodies are handed off to the shell, and that whitespace in rule dependencies need escaping didn’t seem surprising since it’s a list (though it’s probably a bug that whitespace in target names must be escaped, since it’s just one token that ends in a colon). But I see now tha…

> though it’s probably a bug that whitespace in target names must be escaped, since it’s just one token that ends in a colon It's perfectly fine for a rule to have multiple targets, e.g. output.txt error.txt: source build source > output.txt 2> error.txt

Interesting! So in that case one could defend the need for escaped whitespace. Still leaves automatic variables, I guess.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#466

Post by coldsauce »

abhishekjha wrote: post #458
spc476 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was able to to it. Here's the source code "hello world.c": #include int main(void) { puts("Hello, world!"); return 0; } And here's the minimal Makefile to generate the output: hello world: Of course, I did have to swap out the ASCII SP (character 32) for the Unicode non-blank space (code 160) to get this to work, but hey, spaces!

>I did have to swap out the ASCII SP (character 32) for the Unicode non-blank space (code 160) How? EDIT: Ok, now I got it. Boy that was a wild ride.

Could you explain how you did it?

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#467

Post by Wintamute »

However expressive or standard on other platforms, Make is not the correct tool for building web projects. Putting aside fundamental technical differences between Make and say, Webpack (of which there are many) there needs only one argument: Make is not idiomatic on web projects. Most web developers are not going to be productive authoring or maintaining a Make build process. If this guy wrote a Make build process while working for me, I'd ask him to rewrite it using Webpack.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#468

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Myrmornis wrote: post #88
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?

Do you honestly think Make has no advantages over conventional scripting languages when it comes to building software? I suspect you know that it’s designed for that task and has been used for that task for several decades. Presumably you respect the community over those decades sufficiently to have a strong prior belief that there are good arguments for Make (as well as downsides), even if you can’t be bothered to r…

I honestly think any advantages it has are significantly outweighed by all its disadvantages.

And no, I don't respect the community. The community very often makes "The Way Things Are Done" its personal religion and refuses to ever change anything for the better.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#469

Post by hungerstrike »

gonvaled wrote: post #350
hungerstrike wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro-tip: you don’t have to switch tools the minute that something new comes out.

You do, since different communities use different build tools. And they even switch tools, for the new kid on the block.

Bullshit. You're arguing as if every JS developer has to interact with every JS community.

Stop presenting these ridiculous false dichotomies.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#470

Post by hungerstrike »

gonvaled wrote: post #351
hungerstrike wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript is in the server, browser, mobile apps, desktop apps and embedded devices. Basically, it’s used everywhere that C is used and then some.

What is the runtime? Always the same. More than C? Ha! The platform where your js is running is probably written in C!

Pffffft. Nobody wants to touch C these days.

That's why many, many, many, many, many more people are writing server, browser, desktop and mobile apps with JS and not C.

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