Comment by fizlebit

I can't help but wonder whether the major problem is actually API changing from version to version of software and keeping everything compatible.

If the build language is LUA, doesn't it support top level variables. It probably just takes a few folks manipulating top level variables before the build steps and build logic is no longer hermetic, but instead plagued by side effects.

I think you need to build inside very effective sandboxes to stop build side effects and then you need your sandboxes to be very fast.

Anyway, nice to see attempts at more innovation in the build space.

I imagine a kind of merging between build systems, deployment systems, and running systems. Somehow a manageable sea of distributed processes running on a distributed operating system. I suspect Alan Kay thought that smalltalk might evolve in that direction, but there are many things to solve including billing, security, and somehow making the sea of objects comprehensible. It has the hope of everything being data driven, aka structured, schemad, versions, json like data rather than the horrendous mess that is unix configuration files and system information.

There was an interested talk on Developer Voice perhaps related to a merger of Ocaml and Erlang that moved a little in that direction.