1.3 Alternatives to Mosmake

Here are some alternative ways to have done what Mosmake does for you:

• Moscow ML itself ships with a tool called mosmldep that creates a makefile fragment based on a simple analysis of the contents `.sml' and `.sig' files. It has the advantage over Mosmake that it tracks dependencies automatically. On the other hand, it only works for structure-mode units (an obvious shortcoming), and it does not support multiple directories either. I used it once, and it must have had more problems than these, because I remember ending up with writing a Perl postprocessor that converted its output into something better. (This postprocessor can count as the earliest ancestor of Mosmake). Don't ask me for details, though.

• Write your `Makefile' by hand. If you manage to do this for a project larger than 5 units such that you never fail to recompile something that must be recompiled, yet also avoid a lot of spurious recompilations, you'll earn my respect.

• Don't use make at all. Type in mosmlc commands by hand, or write a script that just recompiles everything from scratch unconditionally.

• Use another ML implementation.