AFAIK, Just doesn't have any way to mark "this task is complete, so don't re-run it". It also doesn't have file-based dependendicies, which are pretty common for any kind of programming.
Why would I want to lose all of Make's flexibility and power in exchange for slightly prettier UI syntax?
That's fair but also not what I'm looking for in a task runner, that's why I explicitly said "not a build tool", which to me this falls under (although I realize everybody has a different definition of these terms and where they draw the line if at all).
We make these tradeoffs all the time in software engineering. Raw machine code is the most flexible and powerful programming language, and yet most of us here aren't using it today. Make isn't machine code and Just isn't Python, but there's an analogy: you give up something by using the latter in exchange for making it easier to do everyday things.
Just doesn't replace Make. For the thousand everyday tasks where Make's power isn't needed, it's likely a better choice for most people.
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=arm64 go build -ldflags="-X 'main.Version=v1.2.3'"
> AFAIK, Just doesn't have any way to mark "this task is complete, so don't re-run it"
What does a makefile look like for "install this list of dependencies with pip/homebrew/apt, and don't run it twice?"
> It also doesn't have file-based dependendicies, which are pretty common for any kind of programming
C and C++ compilers at this stage are the only places that I work with file based dependencies. Unless you explicitly declare all the headers as dependencies in a makefile, make won't rebuild a cpp file if you change a header. IME ninja (plus cmake to generate it) has entirely superseded make in this space. Tools and languages comes with it's own build tool (see above - go/cargo/dotnet/etc) or state tracking (docker) that break make's assumption of file based dependencies.
> Why would I want to lose all of Make's flexibility and power in exchange for slightly prettier UI syntax?
Because every make file I've ever used in recent memory has been 30% workarounds to avoid file based dependencies, and work around subtle footguns that make has, rather than actually doing what I want it to do - execute a build command.
It looks like this:
default: your_task
VENV_DIR := venv
$(VENV_DIR)/bin/python: requirements.txt
python -m venv $(VENV_DIR)
. $(VENV_DIR)/bin/activate && pip install -r requirements.txt
your_task: $(VENV_DIR)/bin/python
do_your_thing
clean:
rm -rf $(VENV_DIR)
In our Python example above, you have a file-based dependency between requirements.txt and your virtual environment. And then you have a file-based dependency on your virtual-environment's Python for whatever task you're trying to run.
> Because every make file I've ever used in recent memory has been 30% workarounds to avoid file based dependencies, and work around subtle footguns that make has, rather than actually doing what I want it to do - execute a build command.
Why would you want to avoid expressing your dependencies? File dependencies exist, and are the simplest / most correct model for 75% of all build automation. When somebody has to sit down and read your Makefile, isn't it nice to have a way to express "these are the files that actually matter for task X"?
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=arm64 go build -ldflags="-X 'main.Version=v1.2.3'"
What makes that hard? I think the following works correctly:
$ cat Makefile
goos := FOO
goarch := BAR
mainversion := BAZ
.PHONY: build
build: ; @GOOS=$(goos) GOARCH=$(goarch) go build -ldflags="-X 'main.Version=v$(mainversion)'"*
$ make -n
GOOS=FOO GOARCH=BAR go build -ldflags="-X 'main.Version=vBAZ'"This is pretty easy in Make, especially since GOOS and GOARCH are environment variables. One way to do it could look like this:
export GOOS ?= darwin
export GOARCH ?= arm64
VERSION ?= 0.0.0+$(shell git describe --dirty --always)
build:
$(if $(VERSION),,$(error VERSION was not set))
go build -ldflags="-X 'main.Version=v$(VERSION)'"
$ make build (uses darwin/arm64/0.0.0+<git ref>)
$ make build GOOS=linux VERSION=1.0.0 (uses linux/arm64/1.0.0)
$ GOOS=templeos GOARCH=sparc make build VERSION=1.1.0 (uses templeos/sparc/1.1.0)