Products · Product
sbt
Raised as a usability problem by 37 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2012–2024), in 33 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
- 1Feedback cycles are very slowUnreviewed
Every issue, all time, most people first
Feedback cycles are very slowUnreviewed
20122026- Build tool has needless complexity, inscrutable DSLs and slow startup2022-09-13
- Build tool experience is horrendous; the commenter dislikes working with it2021-12-11
- Build tool is described as a usability nightmare2020-11-05
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 43 complaints
- Scalac and sbt are so slow that building is painful2024-11-29
- Author still doesn't understand SBT's DSL constructs after two years of use2023-09-21
- Dependency list omits plugins added by conditional config logic, breaking offline sandbox setup2023-08-24
- Build tool has needless complexity, inscrutable DSLs and slow startup2022-09-13
- Build tool experience is horrendous; the commenter dislikes working with it2021-12-11
- Build files are confusing, even authors can't explain them2021-02-11
- Older SBT versions were a convoluted mess to use2021-02-11
- Build scripts become inscrutable and hard to follow, and REPL changes break existing builds unexpectedly2021-01-04
- Can't tell which command to run; old syntax errors and there's no way to discover submodule tasks2020-11-11
- Can't tell where the runMain command comes from and which commands a workflow needs2020-11-10
- Commands undocumented and changed, so tutorials mislead; wrong names give cryptic errors2020-11-10
- Build tool is described as a usability nightmare2020-11-05
- Error messages are cryptic and unhelpful, hiding the real cause such as an expired certificate or HTTP URL2020-04-20
- So much magic that users don't know why things work2020-04-14
- Build tool runs very slowly for the developer2019-08-15
- Organizer finds SBT a terribly painful mess to work with2018-07-12
- Running sbt takes minutes to start, even to display a simple version error2018-06-16
- Package management tooling with bad user experience that is hard to work with2018-06-06
- Build tooling is terrible and feedback cycles are very slow2018-04-20
- Regular Scala in sbt definitions lets people express hacky builds that are hard to maintain2018-04-20
- Arcane syntax, slow, and very complex to extend2018-04-20
- Slow to pick up changes, arcane syntax, magic error messages, fragile config files2018-04-07
- Configuration syntax is undecipherable; operators like <++= are hard to look up2017-11-20
- Cannot be used behind an authenticating proxy despite claims it works2017-11-20
- Hard to wrangle sbt to build correctly; long learning curve and slow builds2017-05-27
- Operators like "<++=" and recursive meta-builds are infuriating and confusing to understand2017-04-07
- Takes hours to figure out how to change a setting2017-04-06
- Certificate error messages on redirected dependency downloads gave no useful clue about the cause2016-10-17
- SBT dependency management feels impenetrable to the developer2016-07-08
- Google leads to sbt dependency solutions that are hard to understand2016-06-04
- SBT fails with cryptic messages when reconciling conflicting library dependencies2016-06-04
- Unclear which build file format to use and confusing key definition behaviour2016-05-14
- Scoped settings are hard to understand, especially for newcomers2016-02-15
- SBT builds are very slow compared to Maven2014-12-03
- Dependency resolution and compilation feel slow; caches need manual deletion2014-12-03
- Hard for newcomers to learn: un-Scala syntax rules and cryptic operators like <<= are hard to find2014-07-03
- Hard to understand keys, scopes, task order, and naming differences between shell and files2014-06-30
- Takes over 10 seconds to notice file changes and run tests2014-05-13
- Hard to discover libraries without IDE support to click through method calls2014-01-29
- Build tool is so awful the commenter would rather use Ant2013-11-10
- Sbt console insists on compiling class files before launching the repl2013-10-07
- Full configuration spreads across many files, a bummer to manage2012-12-30
- Build DSL syntax is hard to read and confusing for newcomers2012-04-30