2 ms·

Curious what you mean by pleasant. JSON is not really "pretty" but it is simple, and powerful imo. Is it the boilerplate that puts you off?

• padator 10y ago
  You can use mk, the successor to make, which does not have the TAB requirement (you can use TAB or spaces interchangeably). Regarding JSON, it is more verbose than Make. You need to use quote around strings, commands, everything. Compare: foo.o: foo.c gcc -c foo.c with { 'foo.o' => ['foo.c'; 'gcc -c foo.c'] }
  • klodolph 10y ago
    { "outputs": ["foo.o"], "inputs": ["foo.c"], "command": ["gcc", "-c", "foo.c"] }
  • s-phi-nl 10y ago
    You might look at YAML: it is a superset of JSON that allows unquoted strings.
• wtetzner 10y ago
  Yes, the issue is that build scripts are typically written and maintained by humans (as opposed to programs). A more pleasant syntax is one that would be easier to read and maintain. I think if you want a simple serialization format to replace Make's syntax, s-expressions would be a better fit.