Universal build tool written in Java.
Just like the power tool, your project evolves around a good build tool. Your build tool can either expand the possibilities of your project or just get in the way. Tablesaw is designed to be small and easy to use. The only dependency your project will have to build is Java.
Why should I use Tablesaw?
There are three reasons to use Tablesaw: Dependencies, Size, Flexibility.
- Dependencies: Building someone else's project is a pain without requiring extra dependencies for the build tool. Like requiring Maven 3.2 or higher or requiring python 2.7 with a special json library. Yes you say but Tablesaw requires Java to be installed. Java is probably one of the easiest languages to install on a system. If you want you can just extract java into some folder and point your path to it. Don't I have to install Tablesaw? No, Tablesaw is small and can be checked in as part of your code.
- Size: Tablesaw is only about 260k. Depending on the script you prefer to use it can add another 275k to 5M of data. You can check it all in as part of your source. No external build tool.
- Flexibility: Tablesaw is based on creating dependencies between build artifacts and source. Tablesaw can call out to any external program and then verifies the targets are built. Tablesaw can build anything as long as it has a command line interface.