Context: multiple git repositories in different languages building various front-end and back-end projects. Some repos build a single app, others build multiple distinct targets. Some builds/apps can be configured by editing config files. Build processes are one or more commands.

What I want: a unified way to build and run these projects, so that someone familiar with our conventions can, without reading documentation specific to the repo:

• figure out which apps exist in a given repo
• build any of them (with a single command)
• run any of them (with a single command)
• easily configure them for common scenarios (e.g. “use the backend service that is running on a shared server” vs. “use the backend service I have running locally on a known port”)

In my mind this seems like maybe what Bazel can do. But is it? The docs are slightly inscrutable at a casual glance (everything is defined in terms of everything else) and People I Trust have said “hmm maybe don’t” when I mentioned I was looking at Bazel.

Any opinions out there?

Edit: I should add that I want this to be nonintrusive. I want to add support for “a better way” without breaking any existing tools or processes, so that this can be a gradual migration to “see I told you this was easier”.

So I guess PSN just... Randomly purges your cloud save data if you don't play for a year? B/c finals got so fucking stressful I tried to fall back into my old disassociation spiral by playing Dark Cloud 2 but my 300 hour save game is just... Gone? So thanks I guess for not letting me disassociate before finals but also fuck you I was so close to finishing all the spheda courses.

Oh.

Oh ho.

Oh ho ho ho ho.

It wasn't random. It was so much worse than random.

See, I bought my copy of Dark Cloud 2 before the current iteration of PlayStation Network, when you just paid for a digital copy of a classic game and then that was your game. You know, the way ownership works.

They they introduced PlayStation Network Essentials, a change to the pricing structure of their subscription plan designed to deliver a comically small amount of additional content in exchange for jacking up their subscription prices.

And Dark Cloud 2? Well Dark Cloud 2 is part of their essentials tier. So now, my pre Essentials save data is locked behind a paywall. I could restore it, you see, but I would need to pay their price to have access to my own user account's cloud data, because the game is part of that subscription tier now even though I bought it before that tier existed.

This aggression will not stand.

So I guess PSN just... Randomly purges your cloud save data if you don't play for a year? B/c finals got so fucking stressful I tried to fall back into my old disassociation spiral by playing Dark Cloud 2 but my 300 hour save game is just... Gone? So thanks I guess for not letting me disassociate before finals but also fuck you I was so close to finishing all the spheda courses.

hmmm. mayhaps Kill Yourself instead?