On Bazel and Open Source
Blaze is the one thing I miss the most from Google. However Blaze is very heavy for most small open source projects as the article says so the startup cost is too high.
I think there is probably room for a blaze-lite that relaxes a few of the restrictions blaze requires and is written in an easier to deploy language. Go perhaps?
The build rule language and the correct dependency specification and tracking are the most important pieces to have in my opinion. You could drop the expectation that all the dependencies including the compiler toolchain are in the source repo without losing too much.
FWIW Facebook's Buck and Twitter's Pants are both inspired by Blaze, i.e. have Blaze-like syntax:
AFAICT, both are written in Python, which is a more palatable dependency than Java. Hm actually Buck is mostly Java, with a Python buck.py program.
> Java is also a really annoying dependency to have in a project. Java virtual machines are not particularly known for their portability: the "build once, run anywhere" motto has always been a fallacy. By using Java, one closes the door to pretty much anything that is not x86 or x86-64, and anything that is not Linux, OS X nor Windows. Support for Java on other operating systems or architectures is never official and is always unstable for some reason or another. Heck, even most interpreted languages have better runtime support for a wider variety of platforms!
I guess the OP needs to update his Java knowledge.
Out of my head without searching the Internet, I am aware of JVMs for Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, GNU/Linux, Windows, OS/400, z/OS and their respective processors.
Not counting the amount of hardware vendors offering commercial JVMs like IBM, Atego, Aicas, IS2T
Which sums it up to x86, x86-64, ARM (including Cortex ones), MIPS, PowerPC, RX and a few others.
But lets just bash Java for brownie points.
As an older and more cynical person, hard to be impressed by Yet Another Build system. Build systems just keep coming, one after another. New stuff, such as a new or different programming language or OS, is typically fun stuff. Another build system is never fun stuff. Please yell at me (have poor hearing) when you find a logical, useable build system that is fun.
FWIW, have used autotools, but mostly use scons.