[jpgvm]

Yeah it's a conundrum. The easiest time to adopt something like Bazel/Buck/etc is at the start. However that is when tools like that provide the least value which given their additional friction isn't a good trade-off.

I recently started a side project and decided to do the whole thing using Gradle instead of Bazel. Essentially committing to writing absolutely everything in Kotlin instead of going for a multi-language setup with a more complex build tool. However Kotlin is a bit special in that regard because with multi-platform you can build for server/desktop/mobile/web all in one language with one build system.