[wereHamster]

Another factor: are your languages supported by bazel? If you use the same languages that google uses (C++, Python, go), it's fair to say that those are well supported. For all other languages, even if they are widely used outside of Google (JavaScript, nodejs), you may be out of luck.

[zapita]

Go support is not great either. Bazel can build Go just fine, but you will need to throw away the standard Go tooling and use Bazel instead. There are third-party helpers like Gazelle, but you know you’re in for a bumpy ride when even basic operations require a helper.

[klodolph]

Go support is awesome, IMO. Personally I have favored Bazel over “go build” for a while, except for pure Go projects with no generated sources.

Gazelle is wonderful and it doesn’t belong in Bazel core. Bazel is a build system for every language, and Gazelle is for a subset of Go developers. Since it’s not part of Bazel core, you can always replace it with something else.

[zapita]

But would you recommend using Bazel and Go without Gazelle or an equivalent third party?

[klodolph]

I recommend Gazelle for importing third-party Go dependencies but not for your own Go code. If you are using Bazel, just write the BUILD.bazel file yourself with the appropriate go_library / go_binary / go_test rules.

[laurentlb]

Gazelle is a recommended tool, developed by the same people who make the Go rules. It's not a third party tool, it's part of the normal experience.

[thundergolfer]

Python is not well supported. The official rules_python has an inadequate third-party packaging solution that has led to ~5 open source alternatives existing that each fix a subset of the issues in the official.

Given that the Python community is really oriented around the PyPi registry and pip packaging tool having a good Bazel-native packaging solution is near essential, but right now it’s not quite there.

[lima]

Yeah, what's missing is first-party integration with the package manager (like Gazelle for Go) with proper dependency locking.

[jefftk]

I don't know much about bazel, but JavaScript is very widely used inside Google. It's the main language I work in.