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make: fix dirty check, support concurrent build #65

Merged
merged 1 commit into from
Aug 9, 2016
Merged

make: fix dirty check, support concurrent build #65

merged 1 commit into from
Aug 9, 2016

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wilhelmtell
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This is in reference to pull request #61. I lost my commit, and had to re-create it, and open a new pull-request

if we hardwire the build script in the target commands, then what we
want to do remains opaque to make. it is better to speak make's
language, so it understands us, so we can rip the benefits from that.

we don't have 1 test target, but 3: the 3 pdf examples. when we extract
3 rules from the 1 we have right now, make gets to understand what we
want to do:

  • understand there are 3 steps to the build, not 1
  • understand what are the products that will yield (pdfs)
  • understand products' dependencies (texs)
  • understand the products are independent of each other

when make gets to know what the products and their dependencies are, it
can tell when there is no work to do. for example, if a pdf is already
there, and its tex dependency hasn't changed, there is no need to
re-compile the pdf.

when make knows the products are independent of each other, and we
compile with make -j, then it can build faster by compiling the pdfs
concurrently, rather than serially one after the other.

and, there is an additional benefit here: we can compile a particular
pdf, and not the others: make examples/cv.pdf.

finally, note that because now make can tell when there's nothing to do,
you might be surprised if, for example, on a pristine checkout of the
repository, you run make, and make responds

make: Nothing to be done for `examples'.

this is because the pdfs are checked in, and make sees the texs haven't
changed since they were last compiled. to force a build as was the case
before, run make -B. alternatively, you can touch any of the tex files,
and make will recompile the touched texs.

if we hardwire the build script in the target commands, then what we
want to do remains opaque to make. it is better to speak make's
language, so it understands us, so we can rip the benefits from that.

we don't have 1 test target, but 3: the 3 pdf examples. when we extract
3 rules from the 1 we have right now, make gets to understand what we
want to do:

 * understand there are 3 steps to the build, not 1
 * understand what are the products that will yield (pdfs)
 * understand products' dependencies (texs)
 * understand the products are independent of each other

when make gets to know what the products and their dependencies are, it
can tell when there is no work to do. for example, if a pdf is already
there, and its tex dependency hasn't changed, there is no need to
re-compile the pdf.

when make knows the products are independent of each other, and we
compile with make -j, then it can build faster by compiling the pdfs
concurrently, rather than serially one after the other.

and, there is an additional benefit here: we can compile a particular
pdf, and not the others: make examples/cv.pdf.

finally, note that because now make can tell when there's nothing to do,
you might be surprised if, for example, on a pristine checkout of the
repository, you run make, and make responds

    make: Nothing to be done for `examples'.

this is because the pdfs are checked in, and make sees the texs haven't
changed since they were last compiled. to force a build as was the case
before, run make -B. alternatively, you can touch any of the tex files,
and make will recompile the touched texs.
@posquit0 posquit0 merged commit 7312b56 into posquit0:master Aug 9, 2016
@posquit0
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posquit0 commented Aug 9, 2016

Thanks 👍

@wilhelmtell wilhelmtell deleted the topic/make_targets branch August 10, 2016 15:20
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2 participants