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For anything that doesn’t run in “humanly instant” timeframe the startup speed won’t matter - and build tools are definitely in this category. The fear for Ora

by kaba0 4y ago

For anything that doesn’t run in “humanly instant” timeframe the startup speed won’t matter - and build tools are definitely in this category. The fear for Oracle is also completely irrational, Java is probably the safest bet ever — it is not tied to processor architecture, has a specification both on the language and the JVM level (both are uncommon in other platforms), has multiple completely independent implementation and the majority of fortune 500 companies definitely have business critical infrastructure running on top of it, so even if Oracle would do something those can single handedly support the platform indefinitely. Especially that Oracle has been a surprisingly good steward of the language, and they were the ones that finished open sourcing everything.

mort96 4y ago
> For anything that doesn’t run in “humanly instant” timeframe the startup speed won’t matter - and build tools are definitely in this category. 100% disagree. Waiting multiple seconds as the tool starts up just to get to the point where it actually invokes a compiler is infuriating to me. If you don't have a problem with that, good for you I guess. > The fear for Oracle is also completely irrational Again, I 100% disagree. Have you seen how they're treating ZFS? And the lawsuit against Google shows that they consider copying their APIs to be copyright infringement, so I wouldn't bank on non-Oracle-sanctioned community re-implementations. If you want to tie your C++ code to Oracle, I won't stop you, but I won't be doing that. I'm happy that you found a build tool you like. I will stick with one that's not based on Java.
- kaba0 4y ago
  > 100% disagree. Waiting multiple seconds as the tool starts up just to get to the point where it actually invokes a compiler is infuriating to me I think Java’s startup time is often overblown, a hello world literally finishes in less than 0.1s, and that won’t significantly grow at the size of a build tool. Plus daemons are a thing. Also, there is not much point in starting the compiler when you don’t even know whether it is necessary. As for ZFS, what do you mean? Not familiar with the situation, it is open-source and several open source OSs use it without any trouble. It’s just Linus’s overprotective stance against mixing two open-source licenses that makes it unmergable into the kernel, but I do use ZFS on linux every day, so where is the evilness of Oracle?
  - mort96 4y ago
    > I think Java’s startup time is often overblown, a hello world literally finishes in less than 0.1s The problem isn't hello world, it's the start-up time of big jars. My experience tells me that JVM start-up time on actual large software projects is a real issue in practice. But I haven't used Bazel in particular; I'd be more interested in numbers for that than numbers for hello world. > As for ZFS, what do you mean? [...] It’s just Linus’s overprotective stance against mixing two open-source licenses that makes it unmergable into the kernel Haha, that's not right. The problem is that ZFS's license, the CDDL, is (intentionally) incompatible with the GPL, so you can't link CDDL code against GPL code. It's not just an issue with making it part of the main Linux tree either, it's probably not even legal for distros to even ship a ZFS kernel module, since that has to link against Linux's GPL code (according to common interpretations of the licenses; Canonical notably disagrees). And let me repeat that this mess was intentional on the part of Sun when they made the CDDL (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distribution_License#GPL_compatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distrib...), and it remains intentional on the part of Oracle as they choose to keep ZFS under the CDDL. The mechanism which prevents Linus from merging ZFS into the kernel, and the mechanism which prevents distros from shipping ZFS out of the box, is the exact same mechanism which prevents Linus from merging any other GPL-incompatible code or distros from shipping any other GPL-incompatible kernel modules. Nothing is stopping any individual from grabbing the OpenZFS source code and linking it against their Linux kernel; that's legal. Oracle is just doing its best to prevent people from combining OpenZFS and Linux into one package and distributing the result.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      From your description I literally only see that “Oracle did nothing at all”, which might be a conscious decision, but it’s not like ZFS would be some secret money grab scheme or something like that.
      - mort96 4y ago
        I'm not saying ZFS is a secret money grab scheme. I'm saying I don't trust Oracle and the way they're hamstringing ZFS is one of many reasons why. But I think I'll leave the discussion here, it's not about build systems anymore. As I have already said, if your take on Oracle is that they're a trustworthy company and a good steward of crucial parts of your stack, go ahead and use Bazel, I'm not stopping you.

by kaba0 4y ago

mort96 4y ago

> For anything that doesn’t run in “humanly instant” timeframe the startup speed won’t matter - and build tools are definitely in this category. 100% disagree. Waiting multiple seconds as the tool starts up just to get to the point where it actually invokes a compiler is infuriating to me. If you don't have a problem with that, good for you I guess. > The fear for Oracle is also completely irrational Again, I 100% disagree. Have you seen how they're treating ZFS? And the lawsuit against Google shows that they consider copying their APIs to be copyright infringement, so I wouldn't bank on non-Oracle-sanctioned community re-implementations. If you want to tie your C++ code to Oracle, I won't stop you, but I won't be doing that. I'm happy that you found a build tool you like. I will stick with one that's not based on Java.

kaba0 4y ago
> 100% disagree. Waiting multiple seconds as the tool starts up just to get to the point where it actually invokes a compiler is infuriating to me I think Java’s startup time is often overblown, a hello world literally finishes in less than 0.1s, and that won’t significantly grow at the size of a build tool. Plus daemons are a thing. Also, there is not much point in starting the compiler when you don’t even know whether it is necessary. As for ZFS, what do you mean? Not familiar with the situation, it is open-source and several open source OSs use it without any trouble. It’s just Linus’s overprotective stance against mixing two open-source licenses that makes it unmergable into the kernel, but I do use ZFS on linux every day, so where is the evilness of Oracle?
- mort96 4y ago
  > I think Java’s startup time is often overblown, a hello world literally finishes in less than 0.1s The problem isn't hello world, it's the start-up time of big jars. My experience tells me that JVM start-up time on actual large software projects is a real issue in practice. But I haven't used Bazel in particular; I'd be more interested in numbers for that than numbers for hello world. > As for ZFS, what do you mean? [...] It’s just Linus’s overprotective stance against mixing two open-source licenses that makes it unmergable into the kernel Haha, that's not right. The problem is that ZFS's license, the CDDL, is (intentionally) incompatible with the GPL, so you can't link CDDL code against GPL code. It's not just an issue with making it part of the main Linux tree either, it's probably not even legal for distros to even ship a ZFS kernel module, since that has to link against Linux's GPL code (according to common interpretations of the licenses; Canonical notably disagrees). And let me repeat that this mess was intentional on the part of Sun when they made the CDDL (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distribution_License#GPL_compatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distrib...), and it remains intentional on the part of Oracle as they choose to keep ZFS under the CDDL. The mechanism which prevents Linus from merging ZFS into the kernel, and the mechanism which prevents distros from shipping ZFS out of the box, is the exact same mechanism which prevents Linus from merging any other GPL-incompatible code or distros from shipping any other GPL-incompatible kernel modules. Nothing is stopping any individual from grabbing the OpenZFS source code and linking it against their Linux kernel; that's legal. Oracle is just doing its best to prevent people from combining OpenZFS and Linux into one package and distributing the result.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    From your description I literally only see that “Oracle did nothing at all”, which might be a conscious decision, but it’s not like ZFS would be some secret money grab scheme or something like that.
    - mort96 4y ago
      I'm not saying ZFS is a secret money grab scheme. I'm saying I don't trust Oracle and the way they're hamstringing ZFS is one of many reasons why. But I think I'll leave the discussion here, it's not about build systems anymore. As I have already said, if your take on Oracle is that they're a trustworthy company and a good steward of crucial parts of your stack, go ahead and use Bazel, I'm not stopping you.