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Author here! `go build` and `go test` do work, at limited scale and complexity. In Scala there's Scala-CLI which is excellent. If they work for you, you probab

Author here! `go build` and `go test` do work, at limited scale and complexity. In Scala there's Scala-CLI which is excellent. If they work for you, you probably aren't the target market for these build tools. Once you start layering on bash scripts, layering on make, layering on Python scripts, layering on manual steps written down in a readme.md somewhere, that's the time when you should consider a proper build tool. And if that has never happened to you in your career, count your blessings :) Why not just write some boring, pure code to handle the build? Why not write my build system in vanilla LYAH Haskell? It turns out that builds do have some specific requirements that most programs do not need to care about: caching, parallelization, introspection, and so on. Check out the following blog/talk for more details: * Blog Post: Build Tools as Pure Functional Programs https://www.lihaoyi.com/post/BuildToolsasPureFunctionalPrograms.html https://www.lihaoyi.com/post/BuildToolsasPureFunctionalProgr... * Video: Mill: a Build Tool based on Pure Functional Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6uThGxx-18&list=PLBqWQH1MiwBSThMSFV4k4dGTZkS0mfbxo&index=16&t=27s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6uThGxx-18&list=PLBqWQH1Miw... Thus "naively" building your project "directly with code" ends up not working, so you do need some additional support. While most build tools end up constructing a complete bespoke programming environment from scratch, Mill tries to leverage the Scala language and JVM as much as possible, so you can re-use all your expertise and tooling (e.g. IntelliJ, VSCode, Maven Central, etc.) almost verbatim while getting all the necessary build-tool stuff (parallelism, caching, introspection) for free. Check out those two links if you want to learn more!

potamic 2y ago
Thanks, the post actually answers my question on build requirements. It's a very good write up overall! If your USP is to solve those layering cases, then why not target other ecosystems like golang/rust as well? Your design philosophy certainly seems to be language agnostic. By calling yourself a build tool for Java and Scala, it gives an impression that this is solving problems specific to those environments, and your adoption also indicates as such. Is it that these communities do not like to adopt such tools or is there something about the JVM ecosystem that tends towards having complex build requirements?
- lihaoyi 2y ago
  I called it a build tool for Java and Scala because that's what its good at right now. The software industry is hugely varied, so I can't target everything at once. In particular, this tool started off targeting 100% Scala, but branches out to Java since they share a lot of concepts (classfiles, jars, assemblies, maven central, etc.) But you are right that it is not JVM specific! In the docs there is an example of adding Typescript module support, and an initial strawman implementation takes about 100 lines of code. I'm hoping others can extend Mill to places where I do not have the time and expertise I also opened up a 500USD bounty to add a strawman Python example, so if anyone wants to try their hand at writing the 100 or so lines necessary, here's the link :) https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/mill/issues/3862 https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/mill/issues/3862

potamic 2y ago

Thanks, the post actually answers my question on build requirements. It's a very good write up overall! If your USP is to solve those layering cases, then why not target other ecosystems like golang/rust as well? Your design philosophy certainly seems to be language agnostic. By calling yourself a build tool for Java and Scala, it gives an impression that this is solving problems specific to those environments, and your adoption also indicates as such. Is it that these communities do not like to adopt such tools or is there something about the JVM ecosystem that tends towards having complex build requirements?

lihaoyi 2y ago
I called it a build tool for Java and Scala because that's what its good at right now. The software industry is hugely varied, so I can't target everything at once. In particular, this tool started off targeting 100% Scala, but branches out to Java since they share a lot of concepts (classfiles, jars, assemblies, maven central, etc.) But you are right that it is not JVM specific! In the docs there is an example of adding Typescript module support, and an initial strawman implementation takes about 100 lines of code. I'm hoping others can extend Mill to places where I do not have the time and expertise I also opened up a 500USD bounty to add a strawman Python example, so if anyone wants to try their hand at writing the 100 or so lines necessary, here's the link :) https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/mill/issues/3862 https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/mill/issues/3862