3 ms·

What is the reason for using "just" here? I understand people have their tooling preferences, but this looks like something that build.rs or a plain makefile c

What is the reason for using "just" here? I understand people have their tooling preferences, but this looks like something that build.rs or a plain makefile could have handled?

mijoharas 2y ago
I was also wondering if anyone could chime in on advantages of using just. I'm familiar with makefiles, is there a particular advantage to using just over makefiles or is it personal preference? (which is a totally valid answer! I'm just wondering if I'm missing something)
- aerzen 2y ago
  I think that the appeal of just is that it is simpler than make. It is not checking timestamps of files, but executes a DAG of tasks unconditionally.
  - mijoharas 2y ago
    My first thought was that that was dropping one of the main features of make. On reflection though, the timestamp dependant part isn't really something used much nowadays apart from compiling C. It'd be cool if it was an opt-in feature for just files so that it could actually function as a replacement for make in all cases. I went looking in the docs and found this[0] which I'd missed last time I looked into justfiles. [0] https://github.com/casey/just?tab=readme-ov-file#what-are-the-idiosyncrasies-of-make-that-just-avoids https://github.com/casey/just?tab=readme-ov-file#what-are-th...
    - daghamm 2y ago
      I don't really buy his justification that ".PHONY: xxx" is hard to remember so we should have a completly new tool instead. Make has its issues, but it also has two big advantages: it's simple and everyone already have it.
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        Everyone already has it... on Linux and Mac. It's pretty rare for it to be available on Windows. That said I kind of agree. I like the idea of `just` but it does seem like they have just created a complicated DSL. I think it is better to just write your infra scripting in a real language. I generally use Deno or Rust itself and a thin wrapper that `cargo run`'s it. Using Rust eliminates a dependency.
        mort96 2y ago
        Anyone who's halfway serious about software development on Windows surely has make there too, and it's not like non-developers are the target audience for 'just' scripts
        IshKebab 2y ago
        > Anyone who's halfway serious about software development on Windows surely has make there too Not even remotely. I know it might be hard to imagine if you only program on Linux/Mac but there's a whole world out there that isn't built on janky shell scripts and Makefiles. If you use C# or Java or Visual C++ or Qt on Windows it's pretty unlikely that you'd have Make. It's kind of a pain to install and you don't need it.
        krageon 2y ago
        Literally zero of the hundreds of devs I know that do software development on windows have make installed. Why would they? It's not usual in the space at all, that's msbuild
      - galdosdi 2y ago
        I agree, and even more strongly: you don't even need to remember .PHONY as long as your target names don't overlap with actual filenames, which is usually easy. In fact, I didn't even know about .PHONY and have used make for a long time. That's what's great about it, even if you stick to the most basic features make is incredibly easy and straightforward. Dare I say, it "just" works lol. I hate the proliferation of new tools that are the same as a tool that's been around for 20 years and is no different in any significant way except being trendy. Just unnecessary entropy. Our job is to manage and reduce, not maximize entropy.
  - daghamm 2y ago
    Wouldn't a shell script work just as well than? I'm not against new better tooling, but I also want to keep my dev machine reasonably clean.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Shell scripts don't work well on Windows.
      - hughesjj 2y ago
        Even powershell sometimes with execution policies
        galdosdi 2y ago
        I would just use WSL then, if native windows dev tooling is such a shit show
- mharrig1 2y ago
  I recently switched my (small) company over to using just files within our codebases and it's been going over very well thus far. We're building a set of apps that need to run on Linux, MacOS, and Windows so having a consistent solution for each is better than shell scripting and I personally have never felt great about make and it's weirdness. It also helps that we have a pretty big monorepo so that anyone can bounce from one app to another and `just run` to use any of them, no matter the platform. Either way the justification for me came from COSMIC[0]. [0] https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/blob/master/justfile https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/blob/master/justfile
Sean-Der 2y ago
John did all the work on this. Just is nice as a Windows user. When I started committing everything worked really well already. Editing the just stuff also is really easy. Much nicer to read then scripts I think

What is the reason for using "just" here? I understand people have their tooling preferences, but this looks like something that build.rs or a plain makefile could have handled?

mijoharas 2y ago

I was also wondering if anyone could chime in on advantages of using just. I'm familiar with makefiles, is there a particular advantage to using just over makefiles or is it personal preference? (which is a totally valid answer! I'm just wondering if I'm missing something)

aerzen 2y ago
I think that the appeal of just is that it is simpler than make. It is not checking timestamps of files, but executes a DAG of tasks unconditionally.
- mijoharas 2y ago
  My first thought was that that was dropping one of the main features of make. On reflection though, the timestamp dependant part isn't really something used much nowadays apart from compiling C. It'd be cool if it was an opt-in feature for just files so that it could actually function as a replacement for make in all cases. I went looking in the docs and found this[0] which I'd missed last time I looked into justfiles. [0] https://github.com/casey/just?tab=readme-ov-file#what-are-the-idiosyncrasies-of-make-that-just-avoids https://github.com/casey/just?tab=readme-ov-file#what-are-th...
  - daghamm 2y ago
    I don't really buy his justification that ".PHONY: xxx" is hard to remember so we should have a completly new tool instead. Make has its issues, but it also has two big advantages: it's simple and everyone already have it.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Everyone already has it... on Linux and Mac. It's pretty rare for it to be available on Windows. That said I kind of agree. I like the idea of `just` but it does seem like they have just created a complicated DSL. I think it is better to just write your infra scripting in a real language. I generally use Deno or Rust itself and a thin wrapper that `cargo run`'s it. Using Rust eliminates a dependency.
      - mort96 2y ago
        Anyone who's halfway serious about software development on Windows surely has make there too, and it's not like non-developers are the target audience for 'just' scripts
        IshKebab 2y ago
        > Anyone who's halfway serious about software development on Windows surely has make there too Not even remotely. I know it might be hard to imagine if you only program on Linux/Mac but there's a whole world out there that isn't built on janky shell scripts and Makefiles. If you use C# or Java or Visual C++ or Qt on Windows it's pretty unlikely that you'd have Make. It's kind of a pain to install and you don't need it.
        krageon 2y ago
        Literally zero of the hundreds of devs I know that do software development on windows have make installed. Why would they? It's not usual in the space at all, that's msbuild
    - galdosdi 2y ago
      I agree, and even more strongly: you don't even need to remember .PHONY as long as your target names don't overlap with actual filenames, which is usually easy. In fact, I didn't even know about .PHONY and have used make for a long time. That's what's great about it, even if you stick to the most basic features make is incredibly easy and straightforward. Dare I say, it "just" works lol. I hate the proliferation of new tools that are the same as a tool that's been around for 20 years and is no different in any significant way except being trendy. Just unnecessary entropy. Our job is to manage and reduce, not maximize entropy.
- daghamm 2y ago
  Wouldn't a shell script work just as well than? I'm not against new better tooling, but I also want to keep my dev machine reasonably clean.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Shell scripts don't work well on Windows.
    - hughesjj 2y ago
      Even powershell sometimes with execution policies
      - galdosdi 2y ago
        I would just use WSL then, if native windows dev tooling is such a shit show
mharrig1 2y ago
I recently switched my (small) company over to using just files within our codebases and it's been going over very well thus far. We're building a set of apps that need to run on Linux, MacOS, and Windows so having a consistent solution for each is better than shell scripting and I personally have never felt great about make and it's weirdness. It also helps that we have a pretty big monorepo so that anyone can bounce from one app to another and `just run` to use any of them, no matter the platform. Either way the justification for me came from COSMIC[0]. [0] https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/blob/master/justfile https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/blob/master/justfile

Sean-Der 2y ago

John did all the work on this. Just is nice as a Windows user. When I started committing everything worked really well already. Editing the just stuff also is really easy. Much nicer to read then scripts I think