[Python-Dev] Suggestion: stopping to trust os mtimes

[Skip Montanaro]

    Greg> I recall a case back '95 when I was editing a .py over an NFS
    Greg> mount and running the code on the target machine. The clocks on
    Greg> the two boxes were off by about three seconds. I was going thru
    Greg> the edit/run/edit/run cycle so quickly, that at one point, I saved
    Greg> a .py file that was older than the associated .pyc file.

A help I think would be to compare the mtimes of the .py and .pyc files with 
the current system clock and squawk if either appears to have been created
in the future.  I believe this is what GNU make does.

Of course, the best solution to all of this is the non-Python solution: use
NTP so your clocks stay sync'd.  It's even available out-of-the-box on my
iMac...

-- 
Skip Montanaro, skip@mojam.com, http://www.mojam.com/, http://www.musi-cal.com/
"We have become ... the stewards of life's continuity on earth.  We did not
ask for this role...  We may not be suited to it, but here we are."
- Stephen Jay Gould