oliverdavies.uk/content/node.10105b0a-c18f-4b77-8ac9-bec3250e37b7.yml

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title:
  - value: |
      just vs make
created:
  - value: '2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00'
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      <p><code>just</code> compared to <code>make</code> is something that was asked during my PHP London talk, and whilst they are similar, <code>just</code> has differences for me that explains why I use it:</p>

      <h2 id="tabs-or-spaces">Tabs or spaces</h2>

      <p>A Makefile needs to use tabs. Justfiles are more flexible and work with tabs or any number of spaces.</p>

      <h2 id=".phony">.PHONY</h2>

      <p>With a Makefile, you need to declare some targets as "phony". I believe that this is for targets that don't generate artifact files with that name, so as I'm not compiling and building files with <code>make</code>, this is redundant and adds visual noise.</p>

      <h2 id="passing-arguments">Passing arguments</h2>

      <p>This is how a <code>composer</code> target looks like in a Makefile:</p>

      <pre><code class="make">composer:
          docker compose exec php composer
      </code></pre>

      <p>With this, I'd expect to be able to pass arguments to it - e.g. <code>make composer info drupal/core</code>.</p>

      <p>But, instead of seeing the expected output, I get an error: <code>make: *** No rule to make target 'info'.  Stop.</code>.</p>

      <p>This is what I'd need to do to pass arguments to the <code>composer</code> target:</p>

      <pre><code class="make">composer:
          docker compose exec php composer $(COMPOSER_ARGS)
      </code></pre>

      <p>Now I can run <code>make composer COMPOSER_ARGS="info drupal/core"</code> and see what I was expecting but the syntax isn't what I'd want.</p>

      <p><code>just</code>, on the other hand, allows for defining parameters to its recipes:</p>

      <pre><code class="language-yaml">composer *args:
        docker compose exec php composer 
      </code></pre>

      <p>Here, I can create as many named parameters as needed and use them in the recipe with the syntax that I wanted - <code>just composer info drupal/core</code>.</p>

      <p>I can think of a few others but this is is the main reason why I moved from <code>make</code> and later adopted <code>just</code>.</p>

      <p><code>just</code>, for me, gives the flexibilty that I need whilst using a simple and familiar syntax but without some of the confusing and complicated behaviours of <code>make</code>.</p>

              
    format: full_html
    processed: |
      <p><code>just</code> compared to <code>make</code> is something that was asked during my PHP London talk, and whilst they are similar, <code>just</code> has differences for me that explains why I use it:</p>

      <h2 id="tabs-or-spaces">Tabs or spaces</h2>

      <p>A Makefile needs to use tabs. Justfiles are more flexible and work with tabs or any number of spaces.</p>

      <h2 id=".phony">.PHONY</h2>

      <p>With a Makefile, you need to declare some targets as "phony". I believe that this is for targets that don't generate artifact files with that name, so as I'm not compiling and building files with <code>make</code>, this is redundant and adds visual noise.</p>

      <h2 id="passing-arguments">Passing arguments</h2>

      <p>This is how a <code>composer</code> target looks like in a Makefile:</p>

      <pre><code class="make">composer:
          docker compose exec php composer
      </code></pre>

      <p>With this, I'd expect to be able to pass arguments to it - e.g. <code>make composer info drupal/core</code>.</p>

      <p>But, instead of seeing the expected output, I get an error: <code>make: *** No rule to make target 'info'. &nbsp;Stop.</code>.</p>

      <p>This is what I'd need to do to pass arguments to the <code>composer</code> target:</p>

      <pre><code class="make">composer:
          docker compose exec php composer $(COMPOSER_ARGS)
      </code></pre>

      <p>Now I can run <code>make composer COMPOSER_ARGS="info drupal/core"</code> and see what I was expecting but the syntax isn't what I'd want.</p>

      <p><code>just</code>, on the other hand, allows for defining parameters to its recipes:</p>

      <pre><code class="language-yaml">composer *args:
      &nbsp; docker compose exec php composer 
      </code></pre>

      <p>Here, I can create as many named parameters as needed and use them in the recipe with the syntax that I wanted - <code>just composer info drupal/core</code>.</p>

      <p>I can think of a few others but this is is the main reason why I moved from <code>make</code> and later adopted <code>just</code>.</p>

      <p><code>just</code>, for me, gives the flexibilty that I need whilst using a simple and familiar syntax but without some of the confusing and complicated behaviours of <code>make</code>.</p>

              
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