overlord

# Overlord

## Introduction

Overlord is a build system in Common Lisp. It is a real build system,
with all the modern features: rules with multiple outputs, parallel
builds, immunity to clock issues, and dynamic dependencies.

But Overlord is more than another build system. Overlord is a uniform
approach to dependencies inside or outside of a Lisp image.
Conceptually, Overlord is to Make what Lisp macros are to C macros.

Overlord uses a persistent store to track dependencies. This small
overhead translates into drastically simplified semantics for the
programmer. Much like garbage collection allows programmers largely
not to have to think about lifetimes, persistent dependencies allow
programmers largely not to have to think about phasing.

For more discussion, [consult the wiki][wiki]. If you are a Lisper, you
might want to jump straight to the [intro for Lispers][intro].

## Advice for users

Note that, to run the test suite, you will need to
download [Core Lisp][], and, if not on Windows, you must have the
`touch` program in your search path. (On Windows, Powershell is
used instead).

Overlord stores its persistent data structures in a cache directory.
On Linux, this is `$XDG_CACHE_HOME/overlord`. The data structures
stored there are versioned. It might worth checking the cache
directory from time to time to delete obsolete files.

Overlord is developed and tested on Clozure and SBCL. In the future it
may officially support other Lisp implementations, but that is not a
priority.

## Examples

Here are some projects that make direct use of Overlord:

1. [cl-https-everywhere][]. In-process [HTTPS Everywhere][] rulesets,
   automatically fetched from the HTTPS Everywhere repository and
   compiled into Lisp code.

2. [Proctor][]. Proctor treats tests as build targets, allowing you to
   precisely specify their dependencies and re-run tests only when
   necessary.

3. [Vernacular][]. Provides a module system for embedding languages,
   with arbitrary syntaxes, into Common Lisp systems.



[Lisp1.5]: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/lisp15_family#Lisp_15_Programmers_Manual_
[phase separation]: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/scheme/scheme21.html
[language tower]: www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/scheme/scheme22.html
[ASDF]: https://common-lisp.net/project/asdf/
[Racket]: https://racket-lang.org/
[Redo]: https://github.com/apenwarr/redo
[implicit phasing]: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/implicit-phasing.pdf
[burgled-batteries]: https://github.com/pinterface/burgled-batteries
[Bosom Serpent]: http://github.com/ruricolist/bosom-serpent
[yesql]: https://github.com/krisajenkins/yesql
[cl-yesql]: http://github.com/ruricolist/cl-yesql
[HTTPS Everywhere]: https://github.com/EFForg/https-everywhere
[cl-https-everywhere]: http://github.com/ruricolist/cl-https-everywhere
[Instaparse]: https://github.com/Engelberg/instaparse
[Pseudoscheme]: https://github.com/sharplispers/pseudoscheme
[ragg]: http://www.hashcollision.org/ragg/
[shlex]: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/shlex.py
[HCL]: http://www.jucs.org/jucs_16_2/embedding_hygiene_compatible_macros
[Shen]: http://www.shenlanguage.org/
[Serapeum]: https://github.com/ruricolist/serapeum
[at-exp]: https://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/reader-internals.html
[CL-JavaScript]: http://marijnhaverbeke.nl/cl-javascript/
[Snowball]: http://snowballstem.org
[explicit renaming]: https://doi.org/10.1145/1317265.1317269
[Core Lisp home]: http://www.p-cos.net/core-lisp.html
[r6rs-imports]: http://www.r6rs.org/final/html/r6rs/r6rs-Z-H-10.html#node_chap_7
[package-local nicknames]: http://sbcl.org/manual/index.html#Package_002dLocal-Nicknames
[Grosskurth]: https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/2673
[apenwarr]: https://github.com/apenwarr/redo
[Ghuloum]: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1626863
[submodules]: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2517211
[YWIW]: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=581486
[Racket Manifesto]: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/manifesto/
[ISLISP]: http://islisp.info/
[Core Lisp]: http://github.com/ruricolist/core-lisp
[SLIME]: http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/
[SLY]: https://github.com/joaotavora/sly
[Gasbichler]: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8af5/fbb7988f83baa5a6c3e93e0db4c381abfc3a.pdf
[Bawden]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/alan/mtt/
[Frink]: https://frinklang.org
[LoL]: http://www.letoverlambda.com/
[djb-redo]: https://cr.yp.to/redo.html
[djb]: https://cr.yp.to/djb.html
[Beautiful Racket]: http://beautifulracket.com
[Maxima]: https://sourceforge.net/projects/maxima/
[ACL2]: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/
[hopeless]: https://gist.github.com/samth/3083053
[parser generator]: http://cliki.net/parser%20generator
[Boot]: http://boot-clj.com
[Make]: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/
[Roswell]: https://github.com/roswell/roswell
[cl-launch]: http://cliki.net/cl-launch
[dev]: https://github.com/ruricolist/overlord/tree/dev
[Quicklisp]: https://www.quicklisp.org/beta/
[wiki]: https://github.com/ruricolist/overlord/wiki
[parallelism]: https://github.com/ruricolist/overlord/wiki/Parallelism-in-Overlord
[Proctor]: https://github.com/ruricolist/proctor
[Vernacular]: https://github.com/ruricolist/vernacular
[intro]:
https://github.com/ruricolist/overlord/wiki/Overlord-for-Lispers
[cli]: https://github.com/ruricolist/overlord-cli
[harmful]: https://accu.org/journals/overload/14/71/miller_2004/

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