Maybe you have feel from time to time the speed of the current technology development. Maybe you have taken decisions like “I will choose the latest technology for my new project”. And maybe in the middle of the development you realized your decisions delay you because the new technologies you have chosen are… Well, new.
I always had curiosity for old and reliable technologies so when I started years ago with Linux and software automation I decided to learn Make. I, as many persons, saw at make as a dark voodoo magic that was used all over the place to build C programs, but then I start reading the manual. It wasn’t an easy choice. Big manual, lots of work to do, deadlines… But I did it. And now I can say I know Make and I have a super-tool for automation. I even had published a condensed cheatsheet that I use every day I need to work in makefiles.
I want to share with you why I think you need to pay attention to this amazing tool right now and if you find it interesting check out the introduction I’m writing.
1.- Is standard
It conforms to section 6.2 of IEEE Standard 1003.2-1992 (POSIX.2). So the basics are there for you, don’t matter where you execute your makefiles. Particularly useful is the GNU version of make where some clever features have been added though.
It always goes straight to the point.
No surprises.
No random failures.
No dependencies.
No additional requirements.
2.- Is compact and clean
Only two types of statements: Variable assignments and rules. Additionally rules are written as recipes, those you follow at home preparing a nice rissotto.
VARIABLE := value
dish: ingredient1 ingredient2 ingredient3
action1
action2
action3
But take a look to the real thing and try to get the pattern. It doesn’t look that complex, isn’t it?
PYTHON_EXEC := python3
DEVPI_SERVER_ADDRESS := localhost:3141
python.release: python.check
$(PYTHON_EXEC) setup.py sdist
devpi use $(DEVPI_SERVER_ADDRESS)
devpi login admin --password admin1234
devpi use root\/dev
devpi upload dist/$(PROJECT_NAME)-$(PROJECT_VERSION).tar.gz
devpi logoff
3.- Is smart
If you write your makefiles properly Make will always perform the minimum amount of operations to achieve any goal. As it checks timestamps of files you have generated if the files you are generating are older than the ingredient files then Make will not do anything for that file.
4.- Is insanely fast
Parsing of all recipes and variables takes no time. Is that fast that in Linux you can use Shell auto-completion instantaneously. And believe me: if you have thousands of files this makes your life much easier.
me@mypc:~/test_folder git master
$ cat Makefile
TARGETS:= $(wildcard *.txt)
$(TARGETS):
echo '$@'
me@mypc:~/test_folder git master
$ make test {{TAB TAB}}
test01.txt test03.txt test05.txt test07.txt test09.txt test11.txt
test13.txt test15.txt test17.txt test19.txt test21.txt test23.txt
test25.txt test27.txt test29.txt test02.txt test04.txt test06.txt
test08.txt test10.txt test12.txt test14.txt test16.txt test18.txt
test20.txt test22.txt test24.txt test26.txt test28.txt test30.txt
me@mypc:~/test_folder git master
$ make test
Learn how to get this awesome 2 line prompt with SVC integration
5.- It will surprise you every day
Since I started using Make there is no day where I realize of cleaver features that has been embedded on it that can be used to automate any process. Sometimes when I realize some feature will be very useful I just look into the manual and is already implemented for me to use! No other language I ever used achieved that level of convenience for me before.
In conclusion Make for me is a really powerful tool that has been a bit undervalued by young developers (I think due to it’s apparent initial time investment). But when you get to know it and you’ll see that rapidly pays of the investment.
Make is a beautiful tool.
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