Re: Idea of triggering bugs in users' Makefiles

[Sergei Trofimovich]

On Fri, 04 Feb 2022 10:27:01 -0500
Paul Smith <psmith@gnu.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 2022-02-04 at 09:13 +0000, Sergei Trofimovich wrote:
> > 1. Enable parallel builds by GNU make by default
> > 
> > 2. Do not run dependencies in deterministic order by default:  
> 
> GNU make (unlike Ninja) is bound by the POSIX standard in terms of its
> behaviors.  The POSIX standard makes very clear the way in which make
> operates on prerequisites and neither of these changes are conforming
> to the standard.
> 
> So, it's not possible to modify the default behavior of GNU make in
> these  ways.  Not to mention that GNU make is also a foundational
> component of hundreds of thousands of build systems and changes that
> would cause a large number of them to break isn't acceptable, even in
> pursuit of a good cause.

Sounds good.

> The idea of having a non-deterministic order of prerequisite builds is
> something others have suggested but no one has implemented.  Of course
> it would not be possible to move the first prerequisite as that one is
> special but randomly rearranging the rest of them could be done.  This
> would require an option to enable of course; it could not be the
> default behavior.

Thank you!

-- 

  Sergei