A Makefile is a dependency graph you can read

write-uptools · 27 points · 12 comments

Unfashionable position: for a small project, a Makefile beats every task runner I have used, because the thing it is describing is a graph of files and that is what it describes.

Where it breaks is when the tasks are not about files. Then you are writing a shell script with awkward syntax and you should write a shell script.

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12 comments

2026-10-14
Yes, but it costs a second index and I would not do it under a million rows.
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2026-10-14
I disagree with the framing but not the conclusion, which is an odd place to end up.
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2026-10-14
Small correction: it is the fifth most recent, not the fifth oldest. Took me a minute.
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2026-10-14
Fixed, thank you. That was a real error and not a typo.
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2026-10-14
This is the one I was looking for last week. Thank you.
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2026-10-14
Worth adding that this only holds if the clock is monotonic. Ours was not, and the failure looked exactly like a slow disk.
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2026-10-14
I have hit this and solved it the other way, and I now think your way is better.
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2026-10-14
Do you have a link for the second claim? I want to read the original.
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2026-10-14
Two years ago I would have argued. Having since maintained one of these, I would not.
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2026-10-14
The part people skip is the last paragraph, which is the whole argument.
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2026-10-14
Counterexample: on a read-heavy workload we measured the opposite. Happy to write it up if useful.
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2026-10-14
Reading this made me go and check ours, and ours was wrong. So: thank you, and also, ugh.
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