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Bug 344366

Summary:	Unnecessary recompilation of modules
Product:	[Tools] PTP	Reporter:	Daniel Harenberg <dharenberg>
Component:	Photran.Managed Make	Assignee:	Photran Inbox <photran-inbox>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P4	CC:	com-eclipse-dot-org
Version:	6.0.3
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:

Description Daniel Harenberg

2011-04-30 06:37:05 EDT

Problem: 
Let procedure foo be contained in the module mod_foo. When the code in the body of foo is changed without any effects on or changes to its interface, it would suffice if only mod_foo was recompiled. However, currently, such a change results in a compilation cascade that recompiles all files that USE mod_foo.

Solution:
It seems there is a very simple solution which only needs a change in the GNU Make commands. Both the problem and the solution are clearly described in 
http://www.nicdan.id.au/computers/compiling/recompile.html

More info:
In other bug reports I have argued how important Managed Make is for Photran to distinguish itself from other IDEs and to attract its main audience, namely users with little to medium programming experience. As far as I can see (which is not very far!) the proposed enhancement can have a visible impact at little implementation costs.

Comment 1 Jeffrey Overbey

2012-03-01 11:32:50 EST

This is an interesting idea.  The downside to their technique is that it requires either bash (for #1) or perl (for #2), which may be a problem for Windows users.  It's possible we could achieve this another way, perhaps using Photran's index.  I'm reworking some of the managed build system code for Juno; I'll keep this possibility in mind...

Comment 2 Daniel Harenberg

2012-03-03 09:01:33 EST

(In reply to comment #1)
While I still think this would be a nice enhancement, I think it far subordinated to improving managed make generally to be more stable and dependable. I am glad to hear that you plan to rework some of the managed build system code and strongly encourage you to pursue that. If while reworking you can take care of unnecessary recompilations, perfect, but let me stress again that I find the managed build system very buggy and would much prefer to have a working system with no frills attached.