DotSlash: Simplified Executable Deployment

 (github.com)

31 points | by microflash3 天前

7 comments

  • mbreese1 天前
    I'm not sure how to feel about this.

    On one hand, it's an appealing way to manage dealing with different OS/Arch for a binary. On the other hand, this is not something I'd want to use in production, as it's very implicit. I'd rather explicitly call specific versions of installed binaries over implicitly call files installed in $DOTSLASH_CACHE (particularly if the binary is fetched on-demand).

    This looks like it could be a useful tool in certain situations, such as shared/consistent dev environments. But generating the dotslash file (with hashes, urls, etc...) seems quite manual, which will limit adoption. In this way, it's not too different from traditional environmental module files, but it does automate a good chunk. If the main use-case is development, I'm not sure if this is better than devcontainers.

    It seems like a useful tool, but I'm not sure where I'd actually use it. Maybe I'm missing the main use cases?

    • mhh__1 天前
      It's a tool for fetching things and making sure what you fetch is what it's supposed to be.

      For facebook in particular I'd guess it's basically just a bootstrapping step for buck2 and other basic tools like that.

      Containers are obviously tempting but I think they're basically a way of shoving complexity under the bed whereas the approach that dotslash nudges you towards is slightly hormetic in that it helps you manage the complexity while also acting a slight tax on it's growth.

  • 0cf8612b2e1e1 天前
    What’s the sell on this vs committing a mise/asdf/etc configuration with pinned versions?
  • mrbluecoat1 天前
    > executing a DotSlash file could "run anything,"

    https://dotslash-cli.com/docs/motivation/

    Seems promising but obviously security around the dotslash file needs to be well thought out.

    • Rohansi1 天前
      Why does it need to be thought out at all? The whole point of this is to run something on your machine.
  • umvi1 天前
    This seems like it could be a good way to manage multiple toolchains as well (multiple golang, etc)
  • mhh__1 天前
    Absolutely love this style of tool management. Why do we ever install anything?

    Edit: consider also git bisect!

    • JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B1 天前
      > Why do we ever install anything

      To be able to reproduce all the procedures reliably, constantly, and without an internet connection. At least it's a requirement for my job and some other industries. Also because it's good to be serious about your job, and because reproducible builds is a nice thing to do.

      • mhh__1 天前
        This is more reproducible than most things people come up with ad-hoc, it insists upon the hash of the thing it downloads.
    • hiatus1 天前
      This _does_ seem to "install" things to a DOTSLASH_CACHE dir though.[1] It seems similar to tools like nvm of pyenv but in this case can handle more than just a single target language. Pretty neat.

      [1] https://dotslash-cli.com/docs/flags/#environment-variables

    • bityard1 天前
      Well, it looks like you have to install DotSlash.
      • mhh__1 天前
        You can actually just bootstrap with a shebang script
  • VyseofArcadia1 天前
    Not to be confused with Slashdot, the tech and tech-adjacent news aggregator of yore.
  • mvuksano1 天前
    Looks like one more open source project used to show "external impact" for a PSC.
    • guessmyname1 天前
      Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

      Many people, including myself (currently at Apple) play the promotion game every cycle to continue making progress in our individual careers.

      Many of us try to build useful things, but that’s not possible every single time due to seasonal interest on certain technologies.

      • mvuksano1 天前
        Not hating the player nor the game. Point was that it's hard to adopt something that one can't be confident will be maintained and supported a year from now.
      • quesera1 天前
        The player and the game are symbiotic.