Avery Pennarun personal blog
Mtime comparison considered harmful
tl;dr: Rebuilding a target because its mtime is older than the mtimes of its dependencies, like `make` does, is very error prone. redo does...
- Points
- 120
- HN comments
- 154
- Submissions
- 3
- Cited by
- 5 commenters
Software EngineeringSystems & Performance2018
On Hacker News
| Submitted | Title on HN | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 17, 2018 | Mtime comparison considered harmful by panic | 120 | 59 |
| Sep 28, 2020 | Mtime Comparison Considered Harmful (2018) by ingve | 84 | 62 |
| Sep 11, 2022 | Mtime comparison considered harmful (2018) by alex_hirner | 67 | 33 |
Cited in comments
Linked from 6 Hacker News comments by 5 different people, from Apr 2019 to Mar 2026.
Most recent:
- amavect · Mar 30, 2026
- brianpan · Sep 22, 2022
- joshuamorton · Jul 18, 2022
- dundarious · Nov 9, 2021
- qznc · Apr 21, 2019
- qznc · Apr 21, 2019
