Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ast-grep VS GNU Make

Compare ast-grep VS GNU Make and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

ast-grep logo ast-grep

โšกA polyglot tool for code searching, linting, rewriting!

GNU Make logo GNU Make

GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.
  • ast-grep Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-10
  • GNU Make Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-12

ast-grep features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

GNU Make features and specs

  • Portability
    GNU Make is highly portable and can be used across various Unix-like operating systems as well as on Windows.
  • Dependency Management
    It efficiently handles complex dependencies between various parts of the software, ensuring that changes are propagated properly.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, GNU Make is freely available and can be modified according to user needs.
  • Wide Adoption
    It is widely adopted in the industry, which means that there is extensive documentation and a large community for support.
  • Efficiency
    GNU Make speeds up the build process by only recompiling the necessary parts of the codebase.

Possible disadvantages of GNU Make

  • Complex Syntax
    The syntax of GNU Makefiles can become very complex, especially for large projects, making them hard to read and maintain.
  • Limited Cross-Platform Scripting
    While the tool itself is cross-platform, Makefiles can sometimes include shell commands that are not portable.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Beginners may find it challenging to grasp the concepts and syntax of GNU Make, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Debugging Difficulty
    Debugging Makefiles can be difficult, with limited tools available to trace or step through the make process.
  • Performance Bottlenecks
    For extremely large projects, performance can become an issue, as the evaluation of dependencies might become slow.

Analysis of GNU Make

Overall verdict

  • Yes, GNU Make is a robust and reliable tool for managing build processes. Its long-established reputation and widespread use in both open-source and commercial projects underline its effectiveness and flexibility.

Why this product is good

  • GNU Make is widely used because it automates the build process, efficiently handling dependencies and detecting minimal sets of changes in source files. It is highly customizable, supports non-recursive builds, and integrates well into various development environments.

Recommended for

  • Software developers working on C/C++ projects
  • Teams looking to automate build processes
  • Projects that require cross-platform build capabilities
  • Developers who prefer command-line tools
  • Open-source project maintainers

ast-grep videos

Refactor Like a Pro! โœจ Auto-Fix Your Code with ast-grep

More videos:

  • Review - STOP USING REGEX FOR CODE! Meet the Creator of AST-Grep, the Tool Revolutionizing Structural Search.
  • Review - ast-grep's new format!

GNU Make videos

No GNU Make videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ast-grep and GNU Make)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
JS Build Tools
0 0%
100% 100
AI
100 100%
0% 0
Front End Package Manager

User comments

Share your experience with using ast-grep and GNU Make. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ast-grep seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 24 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ast-grep mentions (24)

  • The Self-Driving Codebase: Full Agent Automation with Otter
    The previous post covered how we structured the codebase: Effect conventions, ast-grep enforcement, Drift, and CLAUDE.md to collaborate with Claude Code. You describe what you want, review the output, iterate. That works well. This post is about what happens when you step away entirely: giving the agent a list of issues and letting it work through them while you do something else. In autonomous mode, there's no... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • How we use Effect and ast-grep to make our codebase work better with agents
    We use ast-grep as a structural syntax scanner that operates on the syntax tree of code (using tree-sitter under the hood). You define patterns in a YAML file, and it matches those patterns against the codebase. Critically, itโ€™s run as part of the CI pipeline and configured to exit with an error when a banned pattern is found. And they have to be errors, not warnings. We learned this the hard way. Warnings get... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Less human AI agents, please
    I linked this elsewhere but, the agent could have a skill to use https://ast-grep.github.io/ to perform such mechanical code changes. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Less human AI agents, please
    The proper tool for this is ast-grep (sg) https://ast-grep.github.io/ And an agent can learn to use sg with a skill too. (Or they can use sed) The issue is, at every point you do a replace, you need to verify if it was the right thing to do or if it was a false positive. If you are doing this manually, there's the time to craft the sed or sg query, then for each replacement you need to check it. If there are... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Be intentional about how AI changes your codebase
    We use https://ast-grep.github.io (on a pre-commit hook). Bridges the linter gaps nicely. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
View more

GNU Make mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of GNU Make yet. Tracking of GNU Make recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing ast-grep and GNU Make, you can also consider the following products

Vite - Next Generation Frontend Tooling

CMake - CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.

NeuroLint CLI - Rule-based code fixes.

SCons - SCons is an Open Source software construction toolโ€”that is, a next-generation build tool.

CodeRabbit - Unleash AI on Your Code Reviews with CodeRabbit

SBT - SBT is a build tool for Scala, like Ant or Maven but with hieroglyphics.