On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Craig Dickson wrote:
> programming, especially lazy functional programming. If it seems desireable
> to re-implement a standard Unix utility in Haskell, I suggest 'make'. One
> could even design and implement a 'make' that would know all about Haskell
> modules, and parse them to generate dependencies automatically.
(As an aside, I suspect Friedrich's reason for trying to write a version
of cat in Haskell is that when you're learning something new you don't
jump straight into completely new territory but start by trying to redo
something you already understand in another context. For example, my first
driving lesson wasn't on a motorway in the middle of a rush hour but along
quiet suburban streets at about cycling pace. The fact that this is a very
atypical driving situation doesn't reduce it's effectiveness early in the
learning process.)
I think it'd probably better software engineering to split the two tasks.
Other than a rather nasty syntax, make does what it sets out to do quite
well: using specified dependencies and time-stamps on files to run
`compilation-type' processes in an appropriate way. What would, as you
say, be very nice is a tool which can be run periodically to auto-generate
these dependencies. Especially nice would be if the source were available
so people could have a go at adapting it to other languages, e.g., C++, or
latex files, etc.
___cheers,_dave______________________________________________________
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "`What sort of people would we be if
www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~tweed/pi.htm we didn't go into the Library?'
work tel: (0117) 954-5253 `Students.' -- Terry Pratchett
