How I stopped worrying and loved Makefiles • Hacker News Board

Re: How I stopped worrying and loved Makefiles

#141

Post by ErikBjare » Wed, May 01, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #140

ErikBjare wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not accounting for updating my hundreds of existing Makefiles and CI config, and asking users to install yet another build dependency.

If it's hundreds, I'll agree with you, obviously that would be a huge effort to migrate. But you made the argument that adding another build dependency is somehow difficult or undesirable which I can't see; the tool is installed in seconds on all major OS-es and package managers. So let's not conflate those two separate things, yeah?

Why ask all my users to install just, when make works fine? Adding a build dependency is always undesirable.

just doesn't even do many of the things make does, as the README states: "just is a command runner, not a build system"

Re: How I stopped worrying and loved Makefiles

#142

Post by TheRealPomax » Wed, May 01, 2024, 6:25 PM UTC

alextingle wrote: post #85

TheRealPomax wrote: post #43

The fact that make is basically useless on Windows still makes it "not the first thing to try", to be honest. And it's rare to still see a project that can't be cross-platform, only lots that went "well my computer runs XYZ so I'm only compiling on that" =)

Make works just fine on Windows.

"Can be made to work", absolutely. "Works fine", gonna have to disagree. The hoops one needs to jump through for every single new project that uses Makefiles in some new and creative "works flawlessly on unixy systems, why aren't you on one of those?" are appreciably larger than zero.

Re: How I stopped worrying and loved Makefiles

#143

Post by pdimitar » Wed, May 01, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

ErikBjare wrote: post #141

pdimitar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's hundreds, I'll agree with you, obviously that would be a huge effort to migrate. But you made the argument that adding another build dependency is somehow difficult or undesirable which I can't see; the tool is installed in seconds on all major OS-es and package managers. So let's not conflate those two separate things, yeah?

Why ask all my users to install just, when make works fine? Adding a build dependency is always undesirable. just doesn't even do many of the things make does, as the README states: "just is a command runner, not a build system"

`make` running fine is the hill I'll proudly die on. Or simply put, I'll disagree forever. It's full of subtle issues that I got tired of tip-toeing around. It's a never ending black hole of programmer time.

And yes, `just` isn't a build system per se, it still requires something to track modified source files and whether they map to the requisite build artifacts. Good for C/C++ and maybe stuff like Latex -> HTML but outside of that it's obsolete and thank the gods for that.

If it works well for you, cool. As mentioned up-thread I wouldn't attempt a switch with hundreds of Makefiles already working fine either.

But I'm very happy to tell you that your case is the vanishing minority. Happily the world has moved on.

Re: How I stopped worrying and loved Makefiles

#144

Post by einpoklum » Wed, May 08, 2024, 11:10 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #31

unmdplyr wrote: post #2

Even the slightest attempt at guessing the host system or searching for tools present on a system will quickly convert this into a blog article earnestly begging for deep societal changes and analyses the inevitable marching of time.

The real reason container systems like Docker became so popular.

the real _and unfortunate_ reason system like Docker became so popular: Caving in to the problem and creating endless replication and mess.