Re: Crosspost: Help wanted from comp.compilers

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:1058390613.119827@master.nyc.kbcfp.com...
> The broken systems triggered cascading recompiles when a spec was
> recompiled *whether or not the spec had changed*. There are several
> instances mentioned where people wanted to recompile a module for
> extra debugging or optimization, and that in itself triggered the
> cascade, even though no source file had changed.

What's broken about that? Janus/Ada works that way now, and it certainly
doesn't cause day-long recompiles in practice.

Why not? Because there isn't any reason to recompile a spec that's not
changed! Certainly the make tool doesn't do that. And Ada make tools are
usually a lot easier to use than C ones, because they can discover all of
the dependencies automatically. So there isn't any reason to avoid using the
make tool. If you don't use the make tool, and your compilation gets all
botched, that's your problem. Do you know of anyone that runs GNAT manually
(without using gnatmake)?

I suppose there might have been bugs in the make tools in early
implementations, but that's not what you're saying.

                      Randy.