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zhengyi13 • yesterday at 7:47 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Probably not in the way that you might mean it, but for me (Xoogler, 2010 - 2023) internalizing bazel means:

"Hey, where's your tool's code in $MONOREPO?" "<path/to/stuff>"

Cool:

    g4d my-citc-client # moral equivalent to `cd ~/repos/stuff`
    blaze run path/to/stuff:target
... and you get a running version of whatever $stuff is, immediately built from head, quickly - no matter the set of dependencies, or which language they were built in. I can just try your thing out immediately with a common interface for all the builds, and I don't need to understand the build at all, unless or until I do, and then OK, absolutely every single build is always expressed in exactly the same way, same idioms, same patterns...

Replies

derriz • yesterday at 9:13 PM

Probably it's just down to a different understanding of the word "internalize".

I know how to _use_ bazel effectively to do my work. I'm comfortable with its well-designed surface but whenever I've tried to understand the inner machinery I've given up - especially when presented with a bunch of custom skylark rules code.

It's like an anti-git in some regards - the surface of git (the CLI) is an abomination in many ways but the the mechanics of the tool are so ingrained and the model is so clear and simple - I never feel uncomfortable.

I've a need to have some comprehension of the inner machinery or the underlying model of my tools.