6 ms·

Pants: Build system by Twitter, Foursquare, and Square

82 points by kolev 12y ago

kolev 12y ago
Here's the original post: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/hello-pants-build https://blog.twitter.com/2014/hello-pants-build
kolev 12y ago
Source code: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants
n0rm 12y ago
Twitter is going to make the internet a better place.
exacube 12y ago
Finally, a modern-day build tool! I thought Facebook would open source theirs first. (this looks a LOT like Google's and Facebook's and Amazon's internal build config as well, btw)
- ch0wn 12y ago
  > I thought Facebook would open source theirs first. Well there is Buck, Facebook's Java and Android build tool: https://facebook.github.io/buck/ https://facebook.github.io/buck/
  - exacube 12y ago
    It's not really a generic tool like Pants is, but it's something. Thanks for sharing!
- skybrian 12y ago
  They're explicit about this: "Pants models code modules (known as “targets”) and their dependencies in BUILD files—in a manner similar to Google’s internal build system" [1] But I have to wonder why they choose to spell out "dependencies" :-) [1] http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html
lahosken 12y ago
It's not just "by Twitter" anymore. Since about 2012, we've had some great contributions from other organizations. http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html has some history.
exacube 12y ago
Can't wait for someone to add C++ (llvm and g++) support!
hatred 12y ago
I had a query regarding C/C++ support in Pants in the near future. Is that in the road map at all ? What does Twitter use internally for building such applications ?
- sulam 12y ago
  It's on the "we'd like to get to that sometime" or "pull requests accepted" list. It's not on the immediate roadmap unless we get a contribution from someone that needs it. Internally we don't have so much c/c++ that people can't just use traditional tools.
harryh 12y ago
Here is the actual blog post from today announcing a bunch of Pants milestones: http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work. Here's the announcement on the Foursquare Eng Blog: http://engineering.foursquare.com/2014/09/16/introducing-pants-a-build-system-for-large-scale-codebases-like-foursquares/ http://engineering.foursquare.com/2014/09/16/introducing-pan... And here's the one on the Square Eng blog: http://corner.squareup.com/2014/09/trying-on-pants.html http://corner.squareup.com/2014/09/trying-on-pants.html It's a fully open source project so we'd welcome contributions (or jokes) from any and all interested folks! Pants is a great build tool that we hope to grow and use for years to come.
- dang 12y ago
  > This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work. Thanks for pointing that out. We updated the title.
vishli 12y ago
Another perspective http://learningtosketch.tumblr.com/post/84319786305/ity-at-mixit14-talking-about-scaling-twitter http://learningtosketch.tumblr.com/post/84319786305/ity-at-m...
billconan 12y ago
I don't want to learn another build system. why would I?
- prezjordan 12y ago
  What a strange attitude.
  - serge2k 12y ago
    why? What problem does this solve that hasn't been solved many times already?
    - sulam 12y ago
      The blog post goes into details, but the main advantage pants has over other build systems we could have used is that it is designed from the ground up for a large codebase that is broken up sensibly into modules, libraries, or projects. It is smart about what it builds (or more importantly: what it doesn't build) and operates from the conception that most of the code you work with is available to be changed in any given commit. This is very much not the style that other build systems support, where trying to work in this way either results in a huge, undifferentiated pile of code or forces you to completely break things up entirely (ie work on stable dependencies). Once you have a significant number of engineers, this becomes inefficient whichever way you go -- either by giving you long build times or by making it unnatural to work outside your project.
      - theboywho 12y ago
        We are a team of 25 engineers working on the same sbt based project. I don't see why we would move to pants. Do you have any non-marketing reason for why Pants is better than sbt?
        lahosken 12y ago
        Maybe, maybe not. As your codebase grows, it's likely to turn into separate parts with some common code. Pants can get you faster incremental builds: quickly figuring out what needs building, building just that. If sbt is quick for you, you might not have hit the point where Pants helps. If you reach a point where sbt gets slow and you're looking at other build tools, that's a good time to look at Pants.
chton 12y ago
Claiming it supports "a variety of languages" is stretching it a bit. Currently it builds the 2 biggest JVM languages and Python. I like where they're going, and if they truly manage to support a wide variety of projects in the end, it'll be fantastic, but for now the claims are too bold.
jnye131 12y ago
Shame about the name
- Cthulhu_ 12y ago
  Python Ant, seems apt.
- kolev 12y ago
  Well, at least it's not underpants. :D
peterwwillis 12y ago
Basically it's similar to other build tools, except over half of the functions are specific to building Python and Java. Here are two lists of functions: https://pantsbuild.github.io/goals_reference.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/goals_reference.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/build_dictionary.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/build_dictionary.html Hopefully they can figure out a way to organize those better so it doesn't evolve into a giant wall of functions you have to dig through to find something you want. Their BUILD file format is not easily human readable. I know we have to compromise between whether the machine or the human has an easier time managing a config, but the build system is one of those i'd prefer be easier for humans. Hopefully they clean up the user interface to make it easier to run, too. For example, you almost always have to type './pants goals <arguments ..>', where you'd expect an alias like 'pgoals'. Some kind of web interface would probably be useful for a lot of the included functions. This seems like a tool that belongs integrated with Jenkins or something similar.
- lahosken 12y ago
  The BUILD file format looks a lot like Python code calling some functions. http://pantsbuild.github.io/first_tutorial.html#build-files http://pantsbuild.github.io/first_tutorial.html#build-files . It'd be great to have something more readable. For what it's worth, Google's been using a similar format for several years, and folks seem to find their way OK: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-how-build-system-works.html http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-h... The word "goal" should disappear from the command line at some point. Alas, we're not quite there yet.
squidmccactus 12y ago
Is this like maven? What sort of social and mobile integration does it have?
jameshart 12y ago
As Americans continue to release more and more tools with names like 'Pants' and 'Git', it really does start to look like they're just trolling British developers.
- h3st 12y ago
  Linus is Finnish, not American. And I suspect he's aware of what it means, given the quote "I name all my projects after me: First Linux, now git."
kayamon 12y ago
I'm disappointed to see that like many build systems, they're inventing their own backend instead of just using Ninja (http://martine.github.io/ninja/ http://martine.github.io/ninja/)
- kolev 12y ago
  Well, maybe they weren't aware of it. I wasn't. Ninja looks nice! Thanks for sharing!

82 points by kolev 12y ago

kolev 12y ago

Here's the original post: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/hello-pants-build https://blog.twitter.com/2014/hello-pants-build

kolev 12y ago

Source code: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants

n0rm 12y ago

Twitter is going to make the internet a better place.

exacube 12y ago

Finally, a modern-day build tool! I thought Facebook would open source theirs first. (this looks a LOT like Google's and Facebook's and Amazon's internal build config as well, btw)

ch0wn 12y ago
> I thought Facebook would open source theirs first. Well there is Buck, Facebook's Java and Android build tool: https://facebook.github.io/buck/ https://facebook.github.io/buck/
- exacube 12y ago
  It's not really a generic tool like Pants is, but it's something. Thanks for sharing!
skybrian 12y ago
They're explicit about this: "Pants models code modules (known as “targets”) and their dependencies in BUILD files—in a manner similar to Google’s internal build system" [1] But I have to wonder why they choose to spell out "dependencies" :-) [1] http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html

lahosken 12y ago

It's not just "by Twitter" anymore. Since about 2012, we've had some great contributions from other organizations. http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html has some history.

exacube 12y ago

Can't wait for someone to add C++ (llvm and g++) support!

hatred 12y ago

I had a query regarding C/C++ support in Pants in the near future. Is that in the road map at all ? What does Twitter use internally for building such applications ?

sulam 12y ago
It's on the "we'd like to get to that sometime" or "pull requests accepted" list. It's not on the immediate roadmap unless we get a contribution from someone that needs it. Internally we don't have so much c/c++ that people can't just use traditional tools.

harryh 12y ago

Here is the actual blog post from today announcing a bunch of Pants milestones: http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work. Here's the announcement on the Foursquare Eng Blog: http://engineering.foursquare.com/2014/09/16/introducing-pants-a-build-system-for-large-scale-codebases-like-foursquares/ http://engineering.foursquare.com/2014/09/16/introducing-pan... And here's the one on the Square Eng blog: http://corner.squareup.com/2014/09/trying-on-pants.html http://corner.squareup.com/2014/09/trying-on-pants.html It's a fully open source project so we'd welcome contributions (or jokes) from any and all interested folks! Pants is a great build tool that we hope to grow and use for years to come.

dang 12y ago
> This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work. Thanks for pointing that out. We updated the title.

vishli 12y ago

Another perspective http://learningtosketch.tumblr.com/post/84319786305/ity-at-mixit14-talking-about-scaling-twitter http://learningtosketch.tumblr.com/post/84319786305/ity-at-m...

billconan 12y ago

I don't want to learn another build system. why would I?

prezjordan 12y ago
What a strange attitude.
- serge2k 12y ago
  why? What problem does this solve that hasn't been solved many times already?
  - sulam 12y ago
    The blog post goes into details, but the main advantage pants has over other build systems we could have used is that it is designed from the ground up for a large codebase that is broken up sensibly into modules, libraries, or projects. It is smart about what it builds (or more importantly: what it doesn't build) and operates from the conception that most of the code you work with is available to be changed in any given commit. This is very much not the style that other build systems support, where trying to work in this way either results in a huge, undifferentiated pile of code or forces you to completely break things up entirely (ie work on stable dependencies). Once you have a significant number of engineers, this becomes inefficient whichever way you go -- either by giving you long build times or by making it unnatural to work outside your project.
    - theboywho 12y ago
      We are a team of 25 engineers working on the same sbt based project. I don't see why we would move to pants. Do you have any non-marketing reason for why Pants is better than sbt?
      - lahosken 12y ago
        Maybe, maybe not. As your codebase grows, it's likely to turn into separate parts with some common code. Pants can get you faster incremental builds: quickly figuring out what needs building, building just that. If sbt is quick for you, you might not have hit the point where Pants helps. If you reach a point where sbt gets slow and you're looking at other build tools, that's a good time to look at Pants.

chton 12y ago

Claiming it supports "a variety of languages" is stretching it a bit. Currently it builds the 2 biggest JVM languages and Python. I like where they're going, and if they truly manage to support a wide variety of projects in the end, it'll be fantastic, but for now the claims are too bold.

jnye131 12y ago

Shame about the name

Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Python Ant, seems apt.
kolev 12y ago
Well, at least it's not underpants. :D

peterwwillis 12y ago

Basically it's similar to other build tools, except over half of the functions are specific to building Python and Java. Here are two lists of functions: https://pantsbuild.github.io/goals_reference.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/goals_reference.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/build_dictionary.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/build_dictionary.html Hopefully they can figure out a way to organize those better so it doesn't evolve into a giant wall of functions you have to dig through to find something you want. Their BUILD file format is not easily human readable. I know we have to compromise between whether the machine or the human has an easier time managing a config, but the build system is one of those i'd prefer be easier for humans. Hopefully they clean up the user interface to make it easier to run, too. For example, you almost always have to type './pants goals <arguments ..>', where you'd expect an alias like 'pgoals'. Some kind of web interface would probably be useful for a lot of the included functions. This seems like a tool that belongs integrated with Jenkins or something similar.

lahosken 12y ago
The BUILD file format looks a lot like Python code calling some functions. http://pantsbuild.github.io/first_tutorial.html#build-files http://pantsbuild.github.io/first_tutorial.html#build-files . It'd be great to have something more readable. For what it's worth, Google's been using a similar format for several years, and folks seem to find their way OK: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-how-build-system-works.html http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-h... The word "goal" should disappear from the command line at some point. Alas, we're not quite there yet.

squidmccactus 12y ago

Is this like maven? What sort of social and mobile integration does it have?

jameshart 12y ago

As Americans continue to release more and more tools with names like 'Pants' and 'Git', it really does start to look like they're just trolling British developers.

h3st 12y ago
Linus is Finnish, not American. And I suspect he's aware of what it means, given the quote "I name all my projects after me: First Linux, now git."

kayamon 12y ago

I'm disappointed to see that like many build systems, they're inventing their own backend instead of just using Ninja (http://martine.github.io/ninja/ http://martine.github.io/ninja/)

kolev 12y ago
Well, maybe they weren't aware of it. I wasn't. Ninja looks nice! Thanks for sharing!