Build Systems Discussion

The article discusses the design principles of effective build systems, particularly in the context of permacomputing projects. The author argues that a good build system must explicitly track all inputs and outputs at each build phase, and provide a coherent framework for integrating different components (libraries, scripts, configuration files) rather than relying on shell scripts like Make. The piece compares several build systems including Google's Bazel, Make, and the author's own ../lua/civ system to illustrate these principles.