4 ms·

My favorite tool for remembering how to run something, or rather for not having to remember: A simple Makefile and a readme file.

dylanowen 5y ago
Same here, I have a makefile in every project.
theshrike79 5y ago
Regardless of the language I use for a project I always have these: - make test - make build (or run if it's an interactive app) - make publish Publish runs test + build and uploads it to "production". For Go projects I've started to move to Magefiles though: https://magefile.org https://magefile.org
- dgsb 5y ago
  mage is great, I'm moving forward to that too.
- sigmonsays 5y ago
  I dont get mage, but i've been using makefiles for over 13 years. I love go but the only example on the site is bad, and there is not any others. Also, executing commands in go is tedious and verbose w/o helpers. The "Why" on the page fails to convince me as well. How is a makefile too much whitespace? Is there any good examples of mage being used in a larger project? preferably a popular one?
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    If your makefile is mostly just simple single commands, there really is no point in moving to magefiles. The test/lint/build phases of my magefiles are mostly the same as makefiles. What differs is the publish command: There I can make use of (for example)native AWS libraries to do complex deployment processes with error checking and validation. All this is of course doable with makefiles, but it gets very tedious compared to a "real" programming language.
silves89 5y ago
I grew frustrated with the compromises of makefiles for this and over the years I wrote a couple of alternatives, run_lib[1] and lk[2]. Now I write files full of the bash functions I need and use lk to explore and execute them. I.e. it's a consistent interface accross projects. [1] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/lk https://github.com/jamescoleuk/lk [2] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/run_lib https://github.com/jamescoleuk/run_lib
dividedbyzero 5y ago
I've been using make to do this for ages, but its syntax really shows its age in a bad way. A while ago I switched to just (https://github.com/casey/just https://github.com/casey/just), which is a simple command runner with less unnecessary cruft (for my use case as a command runner) and a much saner syntax, and I've been pretty happy with it so far, I hardly ever need to look up anything. There's also task (https://taskfile.dev/ https://taskfile.dev/), which is YAML-based and might work well in an environment where everything else is YAML anyway, and makesure (https://github.com/xonixx/makesure https://github.com/xonixx/makesure), which is pretty similar to just, but didn't really click with me.
- eirki 5y ago
  I also switched to just recently. Nice and simple syntax, and a very satisfying verb: just push just test

dylanowen 5y ago

Same here, I have a makefile in every project.

theshrike79 5y ago

Regardless of the language I use for a project I always have these: - make test - make build (or run if it's an interactive app) - make publish Publish runs test + build and uploads it to "production". For Go projects I've started to move to Magefiles though: https://magefile.org https://magefile.org

dgsb 5y ago
mage is great, I'm moving forward to that too.
sigmonsays 5y ago
I dont get mage, but i've been using makefiles for over 13 years. I love go but the only example on the site is bad, and there is not any others. Also, executing commands in go is tedious and verbose w/o helpers. The "Why" on the page fails to convince me as well. How is a makefile too much whitespace? Is there any good examples of mage being used in a larger project? preferably a popular one?
- theshrike79 5y ago
  If your makefile is mostly just simple single commands, there really is no point in moving to magefiles. The test/lint/build phases of my magefiles are mostly the same as makefiles. What differs is the publish command: There I can make use of (for example)native AWS libraries to do complex deployment processes with error checking and validation. All this is of course doable with makefiles, but it gets very tedious compared to a "real" programming language.

silves89 5y ago

I grew frustrated with the compromises of makefiles for this and over the years I wrote a couple of alternatives, run_lib[1] and lk[2]. Now I write files full of the bash functions I need and use lk to explore and execute them. I.e. it's a consistent interface accross projects. [1] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/lk https://github.com/jamescoleuk/lk [2] https://github.com/jamescoleuk/run_lib https://github.com/jamescoleuk/run_lib

dividedbyzero 5y ago

I've been using make to do this for ages, but its syntax really shows its age in a bad way. A while ago I switched to just (https://github.com/casey/just https://github.com/casey/just), which is a simple command runner with less unnecessary cruft (for my use case as a command runner) and a much saner syntax, and I've been pretty happy with it so far, I hardly ever need to look up anything. There's also task (https://taskfile.dev/ https://taskfile.dev/), which is YAML-based and might work well in an environment where everything else is YAML anyway, and makesure (https://github.com/xonixx/makesure https://github.com/xonixx/makesure), which is pretty similar to just, but didn't really click with me.

eirki 5y ago
I also switched to just recently. Nice and simple syntax, and a very satisfying verb: just push just test