Subject: Re: No module management?
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 02:30:36 -0600
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <kNqdnTK65oyxnkHYnZ2dnUVZ_s6onZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Vassil Nikolov  <vnikolov+usenet@pobox.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Dan Bensen <randomgeek@cyberspace.net> said:
| | ...
| | It looks like one big difference is that file dependencies are
| | concentrated in one place instead of at the top of each file.
| 
|   None of these two approaches (centralized vs. distributed dependency
|   definitions) is unconditionally better than the other.  In general,
|   handling dependencies is hard [1], and there probably isn't a
|   one-size-fits-all approach (which is why PROVIDE and REQUIRE were only
|   reluctantly left in the standard).
+---------------

Those interested in such issues might also find this useful:

    http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Large-Systems.html
    The Description of Large Systems
    Kent M. Pitman
    MIT AI Memo 801, September, 1984 (revised 23-Jan-2001)

    In this paper, we discuss the problems associated with the
    description and manipulation of large systems when their sources
    are not maintained as single files. We show why and how tools
    that address these issues, such as Unix[1] MAKE and Lisp Machine
    DEFSYSTEM, have evolved.
    ...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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