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Make wasn’t designed to be a task runner. It can be used as one, but it doesn’t make (pun not intended) a very good one, and it doesn’t have the best syntax, ei

Make wasn’t designed to be a task runner. It can be used as one, but it doesn’t make (pun not intended) a very good one, and it doesn’t have the best syntax, either. Make is an artifact updater. Although it’s not its main focus, Peter Miller’s classical paper ‘Recursive Make Considered Harmful’ does a good job of explaining what it is. One great benefit of make is that it’s present everywhere, so there’s no additional hassle of installing an extra tool. Depending on the project, this hassle-freeness may or may not outweigh make’s relative incomfort as a task runner.

taeric 4y ago
What things were designed for is often a side show. We want to think that intent of creation matters, for some reason, when reality is full of that never really being the case. So, on the merits, what makes it a bad task runner between outputs? I agree it is somewhat obtuse, but I'm still mostly crying from trying to get nox and a few other things working. Githubs workflow syntax is as painful, all told. (Though, it has the very real constraint that it is "per repository" and you need something above it.)
- eska 4y ago
  Well first of all if you’re not using any dependency tracking logic anyway it provides 0 advantages over some scripts like make.sh test.sh push.sh lint.sh (where test.sh can simply call make.sh if you want).
- FreakLegion 4y ago
  > ...there is no more important proposition for every sort of history than that which we arrive at only with great effort but which we really should reach, -- namely that the origin of the emergence of a thing and its ultimate usefulness, its practical application and incorporation into a system of ends, are toto coelo separate; that anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose...

taeric 4y ago

What things were designed for is often a side show. We want to think that intent of creation matters, for some reason, when reality is full of that never really being the case. So, on the merits, what makes it a bad task runner between outputs? I agree it is somewhat obtuse, but I'm still mostly crying from trying to get nox and a few other things working. Githubs workflow syntax is as painful, all told. (Though, it has the very real constraint that it is "per repository" and you need something above it.)

eska 4y ago
Well first of all if you’re not using any dependency tracking logic anyway it provides 0 advantages over some scripts like make.sh test.sh push.sh lint.sh (where test.sh can simply call make.sh if you want).
FreakLegion 4y ago
> ...there is no more important proposition for every sort of history than that which we arrive at only with great effort but which we really should reach, -- namely that the origin of the emergence of a thing and its ultimate usefulness, its practical application and incorporation into a system of ends, are toto coelo separate; that anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose...