From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] usage of CPU server From: nigel@9fs.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:02:54 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 20bec106-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 >> Which bit of the Korn shell models the dependency graph? > > > > > A dependancy graph is a tiny subset of what you can construct with -n and > friends, isn't it? True, but it doesn't answer my question. I asked "which bit of the Korn shell _models_ the dependency graph", not "which bits of the Korn shell can be assembled to create the same effect as the dependency graph in make". I may as well have asked "which bits of the C language model the dependency graph", at which point your reply would have suggested that I should write a C program each time I want to assemble a kit of parts in the right order to create a whole. Any language in which you can invoke other commands, test the relative age of files and do some filename manipulation is, according to your reply, better than make on the grounds that it is more general. Now I'm not proposing that make is all we need; it's been superceded. However, I do suggest that the conciseness of a dependency graph notation is important. There is plenty of evidence for this; the concept has been preserved in subsequent tools, IDEs etc.. So the question is, "which bit of the Korn shell _models_ the dependency graph?"