Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Feeping Creaturism
Message-ID: <8802282322.AA10398@cory>
Date: 28 Feb 88 23:22:20 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 34

>What's wrong with looking at the file dates and recompiling the modules
>that have changed since they were last compiled? If you're being well behaved
>then you have your source highly modularised in a bunch of little files.
>You only recompile the files that have changed. In fact the compiler only
>looks at the files that have changed.
>
>The program "make" does a pretty good job of this. The syntax is baroque, but
>you only have to climb that hill once.

	You gotta be kidding!  My code is modular, but not *that*
modular.  Breaking source up into thousands of little files makes it
unreadable.  This can hardly be compared with true incremental compiler
theory.  Besides, the whole point of the original argument was having
something better than the current edit-long_compile-link cycle.

	There is no disagreement that incremental compilers are the 
quickest and most convenient way to go.  The problem is that they are
usually very expensive to design, build, and thus buy.

					-Matt

>Another thing to note, if you use an integratedcompilerandeditor you lose
>the ability to easily support packages containing code written in multiple
>languages. I could have a package that included a device driver in BCPL, C,
>or assembly, an IFF handler written in C, and a graphics editor written in
>Modula. I'd have to run the IFF handler and the editor in parallel and talk

	True, but let's not get confused.  An integrated enviroment does
not an incremental compiler make.  They are two totally different concepts.
In real life, they are usually bundled together, but this is not a 
requirement.  You can still have object modules with incremental 
compilers and integrated enviroments (not all such enviroments currently 
available support it, but this does not effect the theory).

						-Matt