Pants: Build system by Twitter, Foursquare, and Square

http://pantsbuild.github.io/

by kolev • 12 years ago

82 39 12 years ago

pantsbuild.github.io

kolev4• 12 years ago

Here's the original post: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/hello-pants-build

kolev4• 12 years ago

Source code: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants

n0rm• 12 years ago

Twitter is going to make the internet a better place.

exacube3• 12 years ago

Finally, a modern-day build tool! I thought Facebook would open source theirs first.

(this looks a LOT like Google's and Facebook's and Amazon's internal build config as well, btw)

ch0wn• 12 years ago

I thought Facebook would open source theirs first.

Well there is Buck, Facebook's Java and Android build tool: https://facebook.github.io/buck/

exacube3• 12 years ago

It's not really a generic tool like Pants is, but it's something. Thanks for sharing!

skybrian• 12 years ago

They're explicit about this:

"Pants models code modules (known as “targets”) and their dependencies in BUILD files—in a manner similar to Google’s internal build system" [1]

But I have to wonder why they choose to spell out "dependencies" :-)

[1] http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html

lahosken5• 12 years ago

It's not just "by Twitter" anymore. Since about 2012, we've had some great contributions from other organizations. http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html has some history.

exacube3• 12 years ago

Can't wait for someone to add C++ (llvm and g++) support!

hatred• 12 years ago

I had a query regarding C/C++ support in Pants in the near future. Is that in the road map at all ? What does Twitter use internally for building such applications ?

sulam2• 12 years ago

It's on the "we'd like to get to that sometime" or "pull requests accepted" list. It's not on the immediate roadmap unless we get a contribution from someone that needs it. Internally we don't have so much c/c++ that people can't just use traditional tools.

harryh3• 12 years ago

Here is the actual blog post from today announcing a bunch of Pants milestones: http://pantsbuild.github.io/announce_201409.html

This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work.

Here's the announcement on the Foursquare Eng Blog: http://engineering.foursquare.com/2014/09/16/introducing-pan...

And here's the one on the Square Eng blog: http://corner.squareup.com/2014/09/trying-on-pants.html

It's a fully open source project so we'd welcome contributions (or jokes) from any and all interested folks! Pants is a great build tool that we hope to grow and use for years to come.

dang• 12 years ago

This is actually a collaborative project between Twitter, Foursquare & Square. All three companies contributed a ton of work.

Thanks for pointing that out. We updated the title.

vishli• 12 years ago

Another perspective http://learningtosketch.tumblr.com/post/84319786305/ity-at-m...

billconan• 12 years ago

I don't want to learn another build system. why would I?

prezjordan• 12 years ago

What a strange attitude.

serge2k• 12 years ago

why?

What problem does this solve that hasn't been solved many times already?

harryh3• 12 years ago

Fine grained dependency management for large projects that large teams work on.

beagle32• 12 years ago

I only skimmed through the documentation, so I must have missed something, but I fail to see how it can be better than either redo[0] or tup[1] in either speed or dependency tracking.

[0] http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201012#14 - designed by djb, implemented by apenwarr.

[1] http://gittup.org/tup/ - the fastest build system you'll ever meet, with an essentially perfect automatic dependency tracker

chton• 12 years ago

Claiming it supports "a variety of languages" is stretching it a bit. Currently it builds the 2 biggest JVM languages and Python. I like where they're going, and if they truly manage to support a wide variety of projects in the end, it'll be fantastic, but for now the claims are too bold.

jnye131• 12 years ago

Shame about the name

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

Python Ant, seems apt.

kolev4• 12 years ago

Well, at least it's not underpants. :D

peterwwillis• 12 years ago

Basically it's similar to other build tools, except over half of the functions are specific to building Python and Java. Here are two lists of functions: https://pantsbuild.github.io/goals_reference.html https://pantsbuild.github.io/build_dictionary.html Hopefully they can figure out a way to organize those better so it doesn't evolve into a giant wall of functions you have to dig through to find something you want.

Their BUILD file format is not easily human readable. I know we have to compromise between whether the machine or the human has an easier time managing a config, but the build system is one of those i'd prefer be easier for humans.

Hopefully they clean up the user interface to make it easier to run, too. For example, you almost always have to type './pants goals <arguments ..>', where you'd expect an alias like 'pgoals'. Some kind of web interface would probably be useful for a lot of the included functions. This seems like a tool that belongs integrated with Jenkins or something similar.

lahosken5• 12 years ago

The BUILD file format looks a lot like Python code calling some functions. http://pantsbuild.github.io/first_tutorial.html#build-files . It'd be great to have something more readable. For what it's worth, Google's been using a similar format for several years, and folks seem to find their way OK: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-h...

The word "goal" should disappear from the command line at some point. Alas, we're not quite there yet.

jameshart• 12 years ago

As Americans continue to release more and more tools with names like 'Pants' and 'Git', it really does start to look like they're just trolling British developers.

h3st• 12 years ago

Linus is Finnish, not American. And I suspect he's aware of what it means, given the quote "I name all my projects after me: First Linux, now git."

kayamon• 12 years ago

I'm disappointed to see that like many build systems, they're inventing their own backend instead of just using Ninja (http://martine.github.io/ninja/)

kolev4• 12 years ago

Well, maybe they weren't aware of it. I wasn't. Ninja looks nice! Thanks for sharing!

Pants: Build system by Twitter, Foursquare, and Square

Related Stories