Earthly – Makefile Meets Dockerfile

https://vladaionescu.com/introducing-earthly-build-automation-for-the-container-era-55619c63c3e

by scg • 6 years ago

67 17 6 years ago

vladaionescu.com

randallsquared• 6 years ago

A familiar Dockerfile-like syntax is used, [...]

Oh, no. Another slightly different format? :/

j_m_b• 6 years ago

Relevant https://xkcd.com/927/

inshadows• 6 years ago

Docker-like syntax isn't exactly good choice either. Most Dockerfiles I've seen desperately call for HERE documents.

samsquire• 6 years ago

Dockerfiles in YAML

antoncohen• 6 years ago

This essentially looks like a Makefile where the tasks (targets) are run inside Docker containers. That is useful, I've definitely written Makefiles where tasks run in containers, and I wish it was easier.

But does this actually replace Bazel? Without language specific rules, like knowledge of dependencies, can it build a full dependency graph? If I have a monorepo with many packages, can Earthly build only what needs to be built, and always build what needs to be built?

riedel• 6 years ago

Except all the nice things from makefiles like actual rules are missing in this one. There must be a better way to do this. Isn't there a tool to actually incrementally build container layers in the normal file system that works with the real make or any other build system?

wwright• 6 years ago

Bazel has a set of rules to do this AFAICT. The OCI format isn’t particularly complex, so it’s probably not hard to build something into Make or CMake or so on. (IMO Bazel has some of the best tools for abstraction and reuse in a build system, so it makes even more sense there.)

cpitman• 6 years ago

That sounds like Buildah (https://github.com/containers/buildah/blob/master/README.md).

Buildah can work with standard Dockerfiles, but it can also do a lot more. For example, you can mount the container filesystem, modify it (say using make), then use those updates as a new layer.

folmar• 6 years ago

I strive to see a selling feature in comparison to gitlab-ci... Mixing its syntax with docker is only so little.

hartzell2• 6 years ago

gitlab-ci requires GitLab, doesn't it?

This doesn't, so it's an option for other settings.

spinningarrow• 6 years ago

I think it doesn’t, at least seems to support GitHub repos: https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/github/

jlelse• 6 years ago

Looks nice

kesor• 6 years ago

That Dockerfile looks exactly like a multi-stage build Dockerfile, just with custom and non-standard syntax.

Why NIH instead of simply adopting the already supported Dockerfile syntax of doing the same thing?

nine_k• 6 years ago

But isn't this file processed differently?

monkpit• 6 years ago

Is it?

hartzell2• 6 years ago

But most importantly, all builds are completely reproducible.

This is only true if the commands that the recipe executes are reproducible. If someone's pulling packages from PyPi or C[PR]AN or ... w/out locking the versions, all bets are off.

This is one of my biggest beefs with many containerization sales pitches...

curryhoward• 6 years ago

This looks a lot like Toast: https://github.com/stepchowfun/toast

Earthly – Makefile Meets Dockerfile

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