Genuine question out of curiosity. Why do I want parallel and sequential when I can just write a simple bash script to accomplish the same thing? Is there some additional complexity I’m missing?

▲ btown 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As a note here, there are a lot of resources that make bash seem incredibly arcane, with custom functions often recommended. But a simple interruptible script to run things in parallel can be as simple as:

    (trap 'kill 0' INT TERM; cmd1 & cmd2 & cmd3 & wait)

Or, for 1+2 sequentially, in parallel with 3+4 sequentially:

    (trap 'kill 0' INT TERM;
      (cmd1 && cmd2) &
      (cmd3 && cmd4) &
      wait
    )

(To oversimplify: The trap propagates the signal (with 'kill') to the process group 0 made by the () parens; this only needs to be set at the top level. & means run in background, && means run and continue only on success.)

There are other reasons one might not want to depend on bash, but it's not something to be afraid of!

▲ rafaelmn 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I get where you're coming from and if this was a package I'd agree - but having this built in/part of the tooling is nice - one less dependency - bash isn't as ubiquitous as you assume.

▲ runjake 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is cleaner and you don't have to write a bash script. It's one (well, several: the script, bash, and it's dependencies) less thing, which is important in containers and for scale.

▲ an_ko 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It lets developers on Windows also build and test your package in parallel mode. If you make your build scripts bash, they're Linux-only.

▲

maccard 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> if you make your build scripts bash, they’re Linux only

Git bash exists on windows and is perfectly usable.

	▲	hu3 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's still much less dependable compared to something fully supported like Bun.

▲ re-thc 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> when I can just write a simple bash script to accomplish the same thing

At this point you don't need most things...

	▲	johnfn 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But this is no more than 5 lines of code. If it was 100 I’d understand.

▲ paulddraper 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A few reasons.

1. Minor speed boost from not needing bun multiple times (or extract the build/test/lint commands from package.json).

2. You can query/filter commands. E.g. run all my tests (both unit and integration).

3.You avoid needing a separate Bash install (for Windows).