Such tools are for example scons is a make alternative that rethinks make's "older timestamp => rebuild"
>From www.scons.org/architecture/index.html *(S)Cons decides if a file was out-of-date by using MD5 checksums of the > contents of files, not timestamps. * > SCons also comes to mind because you are using make for R not (traditional) programming *Most of the build tools just mentioned were written by programmers and for > programmers. The fact that most programmer-friendly utilities do a poor job > of fulfilling the needs of non-programmers prompted Greg Wilson to organize > the Software Carpentry competition in January 2000. Software Carpentry was > an open design contest with the express goal of producing a set of > next-generation utilities, including a build tool, that would be accessible > not only to programmers but also to computer **users** such as physical > scientists. * [Disclaimer: Ive not tried scons myself]
