Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Remove too-smart-for-its-own-good optimization of not overwriting

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@postgresql.org> wrote:
>>> Log Message:
>>> -----------
>>> Remove too-smart-for-its-own-good optimization of not overwriting the output
>>> files when they haven't changed.  This confuses make because the build fails
>>> to update the file timestamps, and so it keeps on doing the action over again.
>
>> This doesn't seem like a good idea.
>
> The original code was a bad idea, written by someone who was a
> self-acknowledged non expert on make.  The way that you avoid
> unnecessary recompilations is by not changing the input files,
> not by breaking the file timestamp relationships that make depends
> on to work sanely.

I think you're dismissing the idea too cavalierly.  If A generates B,
A is inevitably changed frequently, but the changes to A affect B only
rarely, this is a good trick.

...Robert