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Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

mill-build.org

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Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#41

Post by neeleshs »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #5
potamic wrote: post #4

What tends to be complex about build requirements that necessitates special purpose tools? Golang seems to be doing fine with just go build and go test. What else are people doing with gradle/maven that requires static typing, DAGs, plugins etc.?

I'm working on a project that encompasses both JVM (Gradle, Kotlin) and Golang. My hot take: JVM build tools, especially Gradle, are a soup of unnecessary complexity, and people working in that ecosystem have Stockholm Syndrome. In Golang, I spend about 99% of my time dealing with code. In JVM land, I'm spending 30% just dealing with the build system. It's actually insane, and the community at large thinks this is no…

Interesting. I spend nearly zero time with my maven setup and almost all the time is in coding. I am genuinely curious to know where that 30% time goes? Is it waiting for builds?

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#42

Post by lihaoyi »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #39
lihaoyi wrote: post #25

Author here! Hope you take a look at the project and find it cool. There's a lot of interesting stuff here. In particular, the Video linked on the landing page is a great intros from a Java developer point of view, and the following video is a great intro from a Build Tool Architect point of view: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsXgCeU-ovI While Mill is focusing on JVM for now, it is very extensible and I have a s…

The current version is 0.12.1. What's required for v1.0?

Traditionally I've labelled my OSS projects 1.0 when they've stabilized and the rate of change has greatly reduced. Right now Mill is not there yet, but maybe if at end-2025 we realize no breaking changes have been needed since end-2024, we can call it 1.0

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#43

Post by philipwhiuk »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #5
potamic wrote: post #4

What tends to be complex about build requirements that necessitates special purpose tools? Golang seems to be doing fine with just go build and go test. What else are people doing with gradle/maven that requires static typing, DAGs, plugins etc.?

I'm working on a project that encompasses both JVM (Gradle, Kotlin) and Golang. My hot take: JVM build tools, especially Gradle, are a soup of unnecessary complexity, and people working in that ecosystem have Stockholm Syndrome. In Golang, I spend about 99% of my time dealing with code. In JVM land, I'm spending 30% just dealing with the build system. It's actually insane, and the community at large thinks this is no…

> I published my first Golang library in minutes, by comparison.

For what platform(s)?

Or did you really just push the source code?

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#44

Post by [deleted] »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #7

It's not clear to me how this is better than Gradle. And I hate Gradle. At first glance, Mill looks like it has many of the pitfalls of Gradle: - Plugins: Creates the temptation to rely on plugins for everything, and suddenly you're in plugin dependency hell with no idea how anything actually works. - Build scripts written in a DSL on top of a new language: Now I have to learn Scala and your DSL. I don't want to do e…

[deleted]

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#45

Post by iainmerrick »

lihaoyi wrote: post #25

Author here! Hope you take a look at the project and find it cool. There's a lot of interesting stuff here. In particular, the Video linked on the landing page is a great intros from a Java developer point of view, and the following video is a great intro from a Build Tool Architect point of view: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsXgCeU-ovI While Mill is focusing on JVM for now, it is very extensible and I have a s…

I’d be interested to read a comparison with Bazel (which you already mention as one of the influences).

For somebody looking to escape from Gradle, Bazel seems like one of the most promising alternatives, as it’s built on sane and sound fundamentals. Although in practice it has plenty of rough edges and annoyances, so maybe there are areas where Mill can do better.

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#46

Post by iainmerrick »

kaba0 wrote: post #29
iainmerrick wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal should be more like 50x faster than Gradle. Gradle is ludicrously slow (at least in every single Gradle project I’ve had to work with).

First invocation may be. Subsequent builds are very fast, unless someone decided to write random bullshit into the build scripts that execute at config time, making the config process impure.

I’m mostly thinking of Android projects. If I have time I’ll try some speed tests with a new basic project. But I don’t think I’ve even once done something in Android Studio and thought “huh, that was surprisingly fast”. Maybe some of the hot reloading stuff is okay (when it actually works).

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#47

Post by jitl »

dikei wrote: post #20
iamcalledrob wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on a project that encompasses both JVM (Gradle, Kotlin) and Golang. My hot take: JVM build tools, especially Gradle, are a soup of unnecessary complexity, and people working in that ecosystem have Stockholm Syndrome. In Golang, I spend about 99% of my time dealing with code. In JVM land, I'm spending 30% just dealing with the build system. It's actually insane, and the community at large thinks this is no…

> The amount of time it takes to publish a multi-platform Kotlin library for the first time can be measured in days. I published my first Golang library in minutes, by comparison. It's a bit Apple & Orange comparison: publishing a JVM only Kotlin library is quite easy, it's the multiplatform part that takes time.

Last time I published a JVM library I had to Open A Jira Ticket to request the rights to publish a package on the main package registry. Then I had to verify I owned the DNS name prefix for my package by fiddling the DNS records at my hosting provider. It took days just to get authorized! Not including the time needed to like, figure out how to make JARs happen.

In go: `git push` to a public repo

In js: `npm publish` after making an NPM account

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#48

Post by jitl »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #28
user1241320 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One note from having worked with both that I don’t see mentioned: Golang dependencies are sources you basically pull and compile with your own code. In JVM-land dependencies are precompliled packages (jars). This adds one little step.

...or a big step, if cross-compiling is required (e.g. Kotlin Multiplatform) I'm surprised there is no source-only dependency solution for JVM -- it'd solve this issue. Pull down the source and build on the fly. Perhaps there is and I'm unaware?

Well since the builds tend to be monstrously complicated for some reason, and there’s no standard build tool, maybe it’s more impossible than possible to consider source based distribution. Or it would be like JavaScript where you still need a build and publish step to turn “developer Java / other languages” into “vanilla source distributable Java”.

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#49

Post by tenaf0 »

lihaoyi wrote: post #42
philipwhiuk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current version is 0.12.1. What's required for v1.0?

Traditionally I've labelled my OSS projects 1.0 when they've stabilized and the rate of change has greatly reduced. Right now Mill is not there yet, but maybe if at end-2025 we realize no breaking changes have been needed since end-2024, we can call it 1.0

Just a tiny notice, the github page, nor the website seem to currently contain an “installation” link. The one found by google returns a ‘page not found’ for the current version.

Re: Mill: A fast JVM build tool for Java and Scala

#50

Post by jitl »

lihaoyi wrote: post #25

Author here! Hope you take a look at the project and find it cool. There's a lot of interesting stuff here. In particular, the Video linked on the landing page is a great intros from a Java developer point of view, and the following video is a great intro from a Build Tool Architect point of view: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsXgCeU-ovI While Mill is focusing on JVM for now, it is very extensible and I have a s…

How possible is it to make your tool "zero-config" by default? I see a lot of comments in this thread and elsewhere on twitter asking for essentially `go build`, `go fmt`, `go test` for Java/JVM. I think the language has quite strong convention around directory layout and file naming already, so do you think it would be possible for mill or a mill wrapper to offer the same kind of standardized zero config workflow? I think a JVM tool that gets that right - takes it as far as possible to the golang model - would have a lot of happy users.
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