Hi Julien,
Thank you for taking the time to look into Bazel.
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IMHO not a good point since we're trying to reduce our Java's dependency
Bazel does not require users to install a system-wide Java runtime.
It ships with its *own private bundled JRE*, so you don’t need to
install or manage a specific Java version on your system (see
https://bazel.build/install/ubuntu ).
In practice, most contributors would likely install *Bazelisk*, which
automatically manages compatible Bazel versions.
This helps ensure everyone uses the same Bazel version across platforms.
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- no import, modules, packages
- no try/catch
Starlark intentionally omits these features.
While that might seem restrictive, this design helps improve
*reproducibility and readability* in build scripts.
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Author is Google so a dependency to a GAFAM but some might say we
already use Skia lib so why not a little more dependency to Google.
I don’t think it’s a major risk.
Given its wide adoption in both industry and academia, I believe the
ecosystem would remain healthy and continue evolving independently of
Google’s direct involvement.
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Best regards,
Haruhiko Nishizaki
On 2025/10/15 21:31, Julien Nabet wrote:
Hello,
I don't know Bazel so I took a quick look at Wikipedia. First thing I
read is it's written in Java.
IMHO not a good point since we're trying to reduce our Java's
dependency (in comparison, Meson is written in Python).
Then I noticed, it uses "Starlark", a specific language to Bazel. Now
even if Starlark seems a subset of Python, there are some differences,
eg :
- no import, modules, packages
- no try/catch
Author is Google so a dependency to a GAFAM but some might say we
already use Skia lib so why not a little more dependency to Google.
In brief, if we've got migrate to something else than gbuild, I'd
prefer avoiding Basel and use Meson.
Now I'm not an expert on any of these so I'll let the experts judge.
Julien
