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Fix a number of things.

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Daniel Jones 2013-03-09 20:54:13 -08:00
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README.md
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# Mk
Mk is a reboot of the Plan 9 mk command, which itself is a replacement for make.
This tool is for anyone who loves make, but hates all its stupid bullshit.
Mk is a reboot of the Plan 9 mk command, which itself is [a successor to
make]($). This tool is for anyone who loves make, but hates all its stupid
bullshit.
# Installation
1. Install Go.
2. Run `go install github.com/dcjones/mk`
# Why Plan 9 mk is better than make
Plan 9 mk blows make out of the water. Yet tragically, few use or have even heard
of it. Put simply, mk takes make, keeps its simple direct syntax, but fixes
basically everything that's annoyed you over the years. To name a few things:
Way back in the 90s, some smart guys at Bell Labs got together and decided to
write new operating system to replace Unix. The idea was to keep everything that
was great about Unix, but totally disregard backwards compatibility in a quest
for something better. The operating system they designed, Plan 9, had a lot of
terrific ideas, and though some were cherry picked, the OS as a whole never
really caught on.
Among the gems in Plan 9 was a rewrite of the venerable Unix make
command, in the form of mk. Simply put, mk is make, but with a large collection
of relatively minor improvements, adding up to something more consistent,
elegant, and powerful. To name a few specifics:
1. Recipes are delimited by any indentation, not tab characters in particular.
1. Phony targets are handled separately from file targets. Your mkfile won't
@ -29,29 +43,30 @@ basically everything that's annoyed you over the years. To name a few things:
1. Variables are expanded in recipes only if they are defined. They way you
usually don't have to escape `$`.
And much more! For more, read the original mk paper: ["Mk: a successor to
make"](#).
And much more!
# Improvements over Plan 9 mk
This mk stays mostly faithful to Plan 9, but makes a few (in my opinion)
improvements.
1. A clean, modern implementation in go, that doesn't depend on the whole plan
9 for userspace stack.
1. Use go regular expressions, which are perl-like. The original mk used plan9
1. A clean, modern implementation in Go, that doesn't depend on the whole Plan
9 stack.
1. Use Go regular expressions, which are perl-like. The original mk used plan9
regex, which few people know or care to learn.
1. Allow blank lines in recipes. A recipe is any indented block of text, and
continues until a non-indented character or the end of the file.
continues until a non-indented character or the end of the file. (Similar
to blocks in Python.)
1. Add an 'S' attribute to execute recipes with programs other than sh. This
way, you don't have to separate your six line python script into its own
file. Just stick it in the mkfile.
file. Just stick it directly in the mkfile.
1. Use sh syntax for command insertion (i.e. backticks) rather than rc shell
syntax.
1. Pretty colors.
# Current State
Totally non-functional. Check back later!
Functional, but with some bugs and some unimplemented minor features. Give it a
try and see what you think!