
Finally a decent alternative to make? - pswenson
https://github.com/go-task/task
======
grzm
Please don't editorialize submission titles. It's against the HN guidelines.
This is a link to the go-task/task repo, which describes itself as a "Simple
task runner / Make alternative written in Go".

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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divyekapoor
I hate to break it to the author - despite the effort put in, task is solving
the wrong problem. The biggest problem in build systems is not the syntax,
it's dependency management and reproducibility.

Buck / Bazel and to a very minimal extent make, get this right. There are
pattern match rules and extensibility rules. The dependency graph largely
works.

Task is trying to be a decent make alternative, but it's solving a years old
problem. The next problem in build systems needs more thought and execution.

Best wishes, Divye

~~~
thiggy
I disagree. Makefile syntax has been a barrier to entry for many engineers
I've worked with. When I saw this I got very excited. I haven't used it yet,
but I'm looking forward to playing with it next week.

~~~
ageofwant
I find that hard to believe.

    
    
        target: dependency
            make_it_so
    

I have replaced many multi page build.sh/dev.sh scripts with a 20 line or less
Makefile using nothing more than the syntax above.

Yes the tab thing is stupid, vim makes it not matter.

~~~
thiggy
Don't get me wrong, I love make, but I also can admit it's old and has some
legacy warts. Phony targets, double dollar signs, the tab thing you mention.
I've learned to be ok with it, but I've seen it be a barrier to adoption.

I'm not saying it _should_ be a barrier, I'm saying it is a thing I have
experienced in my career.

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rodrigosetti
Yes, it's a decent syntax sugar alternative for the kids. But it's not going
to win if it doesn't solve the real problem: reproductive builds. A problem
that CMake (and similars) are really trying to solve.

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Majora320
What about tup? [http://gittup.org/tup/](http://gittup.org/tup/)

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aphextron
There's a million decent alternatives to Make. None of them are installed as
standard software on every Unix-like system.

~~~
m0llusk
except perl

