[asdf-devel] Ordering of system :depends-on elements

[Attila Lendvai]

> ASDF's process for constructing a build plan from partial-order
> dependencies is (unless Faré changed something when I wasn't
> looking) non-deterministic.

does it mean that it's actively randomized?

i remember in our busier days (well before ASDF3) we used to have
load order anomalies that seemed like they depended on filesystem
order or something external to lisp.

the symptom was that on my dev machine stuff compiled/loaded fine
reproducibly, then when the recorded changes got pulled to the live
server it suddenly failed to compile/load due to a dependency that was
not explicitly added to the .asd file.

i don't really remember if it was just partial reloading, or clean
recompile/reload, but i think it was the former, because it was rather
baffling and the former wouldn't be too baffling.

if the ordering is actually not deterministic (as opposed to merely
unspecified), then maybe it's a good idea to actively randomize
lists before dependency constraints are applied?

-- 
• attila lendvai
• PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39
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“Mathematics is as little a science as grammar is a language.”
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