RE: should any build system legitimately change any tracked files?

From: Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>
Date: Jan 19, 2018, 17:59 UTC
Message-ID: <005b01d3914f$3441fca0$9cc5f5e0$@nexbridge.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1801191247250.10222@localhost.localdomain>

On January 19, 2018 12:52 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>   just finished teaching a couple git courses and, after class, a student

came

Show 7 quoted lines

> up and described a rather weird problem -- in short:
> 
>   1) before build, "git diff" shows nothing
>   2) do the standard build
>   3) suddenly, "git diff" shows some changes
> 
> that's all the info i was given, but it *seems* clear that the build

process itself

> was making changes to one or more tracked files.
> 
>   technically, i guess one can design a build system to do pretty much
> anything, but is it fair to say that this is a really poor design

decision?

> admittedly, this isn't specifically a git question, but i'm open to

opinions on

> something that strikes me as a bad idea.

Depends what you're up to. Changing the source repository content is probably bad. Adding tags may not be. Also, updating a separate repository to include build information (a.k.a dependency tracking between source and object commits) can be very useful for managing production builds and environments.

Cheers, Randall

-- Brief whoami:
 NonStop developer since approximately 211288444200000000
 UNIX developer since approximately 421664400
-- In my real life, I talk too much.