Re: [dev] requirements of build systems

From: Pedro Lucas Porcellis <porcellis_AT_eletrotupi.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2022 11:00:23 -0300

On Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 09:29:55PM +0900, Pontus Stenetorp wrote:
> On Tue 01 Feb 2022, NRK wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 12:10:27AM +0200, Petros Pateros wrote:
> > > However, it was pointed out to me that relying on mtime can give
> > > wrong results, for example: (a) if the clock is set backwards or
> > > in case of insufficient granularity in mtime then a file that gets
> > > modified might have the same mtime (b) an mmap(2)-ed file can get
> > > modified but its mtime might not get updated soon enough
> >
> > How likely is it for these situations to occur in practice? If these
> > are practical problems, then it makes sense to solve them. Otherwise
> > I think it's best not to waste resource solving theoretical
> > problems.
>
> Speaking for myself, I certainly have experienced issues with
> inaccurate timestamps on NFS for compute clusters where its use is
> very common. Not saying this as a supporter of NFS and the likes, just
> as evidence that it does occur in practice.

Yeah, but again, how common is that scenario on a regular, day-to-day
development? I think for least people out there, relying on mtime is just
perfectly fine.

I believe that generally, this kind of "futorology agentic development thinking"
can lead to developing very messy and complex solutions, because "we
might hit that edgecase in the future that only 0.5% of users have
then". In the end it's like NRK said, in the end it's just a waste of
resources.

With best regards,
Pedro Lucas Porcellis
Received on Tue Feb 01 2022 - 15:00:23 CET