> I think you're falling into the trap of "past solutions didn't work, therefore the problem is intractable", which is a special case of the "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" fallacy. Sometimes a new tool comes out that fixes the problems of past tools.
Where's the breakthrough then? What's the magic that allows bazel to succeed where dozens of similar efforts have failed? Sometimes a new tool does fix the problems of past tools, but that's almost always due to some new insight.
Not sure exactly, since I haven't used any of the dozens of similar efforts. It sounds like you're a lot more familiar with the area, so here's some resources:
* Bazel's FAQ: https://bazel.build/faq.html
* A description on how Blaze works: https://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-...
Unfortunately the design doc for Blaze is internal and AFAIK not available publicly. I imagine they took a look at a number of the similar efforts and made decisions based on what those approaches did wrong.
I think you're falling into the trap of "past solutions didn't work, therefore the problem is intractable", which is a special case of the "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" fallacy. Sometimes a new tool comes out that fixes the problems of past tools.