4 ms·

The Tup Build System

71 points by timtadh 12y ago

hardwaresofton 12y ago
Skeptical at first, but it certainly introduces an interesting build tool that seems very easy to understand. I particularly liked tup monitor - grunt-like functionality for C code is awesome. Comparison to make is impressive: http://gittup.org/tup/make_vs_tup.html http://gittup.org/tup/make_vs_tup.html
codemac 12y ago
I used this tool in a very large engineering org (100+ engineers on the same project), and it really held up for our C and C++. I highly recommend this tool for anyone considering what to do about builds with c/c++ and don't want to hassle with overwrought things like waf or scons.
kolev 12y ago
I've been using it for a couple of years now, but for simple projects, it's a bit overcomplicated. In other words, it's a great tool for the right projects, but not a silver bullet.
dezgeg 12y ago
The one thing I really miss in Tup is the '* * ' glob, i.e. '* ' that also recurses through subdirectories. Other than that, it's great. I was able to replace my C++ project's (utilizing generated sources and headers and other nontrivial things) custom-written and brittle makefiles (of 100-ish lines) with under ten lines of Tup.
burke 12y ago
Related reading: https://github.com/apenwarr/redo https://github.com/apenwarr/redo
- jb55 12y ago
  We have been using redo for the longest time until parallel builds broke on Mavericks. The project basically has 0 maintainers so we had to switch off of it. It's a shame because redo was pretty great while it worked.
  - burke 12y ago
    It's probably not hard to fix; the codebase is tiny. I've been looking for an excuse to use it, but none has surfaced, since the only compiled language I use at work is Go.
skybrian 12y ago
Reversing the arrows looks pretty silly at first, but apparently the idea is that if you start with the files that changed, you can read partial dependency graphs and start building any downstream dependencies that changed before the entire build graph is loaded. If you start from the top down, you have to load and compute the entire dependency graph up front. This will matter for large build systems where just loading the build files takes significant time. Another way to solve it is just to make loading the build file very fast so that it's a non-issue, which is what ninja [1] does. Apparently there's some influence: "There are many other build systems that are more user-friendly or featureful than Ninja itself. For some recommendations: the Ninja author found the tup build system influential in Ninja’s design, and thinks redo's design is quite clever." [2] [1] http://martine.github.io/ninja/ http://martine.github.io/ninja/ [2] http://martine.github.io/ninja/manual.html http://martine.github.io/ninja/manual.html
- dima55 12y ago
  Every time tup comes up, there's a question I have that nobody seems to know the answer to: how does tup know what changed? Make does this by starting from what it needs to build (which it knows) and traversing the dependencies. Does tup have some sort of daemon that monitors the file system? What if the file system isn't local (NFS, say)?
  - foxhill 12y ago
    i don't know for certain but i'd guess at; for each file specified in tupfile is target output file's creation date older than input file's last modified date? yes -> build, no -> skip.
  - xt 12y ago
    It uses inotify for file systems that supports it.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - 12y ago
xt 12y ago
I use tup in my web projects to monitor my folders for things to "compile". This includes CoffeScript, MoonScript, SASS/SCSS, Less and more. Very fast and painless.
salmonellaeater 12y ago
Technical merits aside, 'tup'[1][2] is a poor choice for the name, especially since it's hosted on a site that includes 'git'[3][4] in the URL. It would be difficult to talk about the tool professionally without risking offending someone. [1] http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/othello/T11.html http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/othello/T11.html [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=define:tup https://www.google.com/search?q=define:tup [3] https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_the_.27Git.27_name.3F https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_the_.27Git.... [4] https://www.google.com/search?q=define:git https://www.google.com/search?q=define:git
Nimi 12y ago
See here for a comparison of various build systems, including tup: https://github.com/ndmitchell/build-shootout#readme https://github.com/ndmitchell/build-shootout#readme
serve_yay 12y ago
> This means you can stay focused on your project rather than on your build system. Is this more important or less important than all the stuff about directed acyclic graphs before it? Sheesh.

71 points by timtadh 12y ago

Skeptical at first, but it certainly introduces an interesting build tool that seems very easy to understand. I particularly liked tup monitor - grunt-like functionality for C code is awesome. Comparison to make is impressive: http://gittup.org/tup/make_vs_tup.html http://gittup.org/tup/make_vs_tup.html

codemac 12y ago

I used this tool in a very large engineering org (100+ engineers on the same project), and it really held up for our C and C++. I highly recommend this tool for anyone considering what to do about builds with c/c++ and don't want to hassle with overwrought things like waf or scons.

kolev 12y ago

I've been using it for a couple of years now, but for simple projects, it's a bit overcomplicated. In other words, it's a great tool for the right projects, but not a silver bullet.

dezgeg 12y ago

The one thing I really miss in Tup is the '* * ' glob, i.e. '* ' that also recurses through subdirectories. Other than that, it's great. I was able to replace my C++ project's (utilizing generated sources and headers and other nontrivial things) custom-written and brittle makefiles (of 100-ish lines) with under ten lines of Tup.

burke 12y ago

Related reading: https://github.com/apenwarr/redo https://github.com/apenwarr/redo

jb55 12y ago
We have been using redo for the longest time until parallel builds broke on Mavericks. The project basically has 0 maintainers so we had to switch off of it. It's a shame because redo was pretty great while it worked.
- burke 12y ago
  It's probably not hard to fix; the codebase is tiny. I've been looking for an excuse to use it, but none has surfaced, since the only compiled language I use at work is Go.

skybrian 12y ago

Reversing the arrows looks pretty silly at first, but apparently the idea is that if you start with the files that changed, you can read partial dependency graphs and start building any downstream dependencies that changed before the entire build graph is loaded. If you start from the top down, you have to load and compute the entire dependency graph up front. This will matter for large build systems where just loading the build files takes significant time. Another way to solve it is just to make loading the build file very fast so that it's a non-issue, which is what ninja [1] does. Apparently there's some influence: "There are many other build systems that are more user-friendly or featureful than Ninja itself. For some recommendations: the Ninja author found the tup build system influential in Ninja’s design, and thinks redo's design is quite clever." [2] [1] http://martine.github.io/ninja/ http://martine.github.io/ninja/ [2] http://martine.github.io/ninja/manual.html http://martine.github.io/ninja/manual.html

dima55 12y ago
Every time tup comes up, there's a question I have that nobody seems to know the answer to: how does tup know what changed? Make does this by starting from what it needs to build (which it knows) and traversing the dependencies. Does tup have some sort of daemon that monitors the file system? What if the file system isn't local (NFS, say)?
- foxhill 12y ago
  i don't know for certain but i'd guess at; for each file specified in tupfile is target output file's creation date older than input file's last modified date? yes -> build, no -> skip.
- xt 12y ago
  It uses inotify for file systems that supports it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - 12y ago

xt 12y ago

I use tup in my web projects to monitor my folders for things to "compile". This includes CoffeScript, MoonScript, SASS/SCSS, Less and more. Very fast and painless.

salmonellaeater 12y ago

Technical merits aside, 'tup'[1][2] is a poor choice for the name, especially since it's hosted on a site that includes 'git'[3][4] in the URL. It would be difficult to talk about the tool professionally without risking offending someone. [1] http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/othello/T11.html http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/othello/T11.html [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=define:tup https://www.google.com/search?q=define:tup [3] https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_the_.27Git.27_name.3F https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_the_.27Git.... [4] https://www.google.com/search?q=define:git https://www.google.com/search?q=define:git

Nimi 12y ago

See here for a comparison of various build systems, including tup: https://github.com/ndmitchell/build-shootout#readme https://github.com/ndmitchell/build-shootout#readme

serve_yay 12y ago

> This means you can stay focused on your project rather than on your build system. Is this more important or less important than all the stuff about directed acyclic graphs before it? Sheesh.