potential (long-winded but on-topic) suggestion to improve (great) citation for jobserver protocol
danny mcClanahan <[email protected]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 20:09:44 +0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.gnu.make.bugs |
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Hello bug-make! I have another open-ended question I will put into a separate email, but I = want to first note: I was happily surprised to see cargo actually cite "GNU make= " for the jobserver protocol: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/build-scripts.html#jobserver, whi= ch links to the truly astounding design document at https://make.mad-scientist.net/papers/jobserver-implementation/. I think if cargo is going to link to that page as advice for their users, i= t might be useful to extend that in-depth design discussion with the "how to write against this in 2XYZ" that https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Job-Slots.html provides-= -the windows jobserver subpage in particular might be useful for their target audience, who might also then learn to question phrasing like: > developed for GNU make, when "by" GNU make, "for" gcc would be my understanding...although I can't actually seem to find *any* discussion of the make jobserver interaction in= the gcc or gccint info docs! But: > PAGER=3D'grep --color -F flto=3Djob -B 3 -A 4' man gcc is a great reference for gcc 15.2.1. I do not mean to pressure the mad-scientist to modify their personal labora= tory space--just to note that I think both citations (the deep methodology and t= he current application) are fantastic resources and complementary e.g. to link together. In fact, I think it could be neat to include in-tree. I really adore gzip's `algorithm.doc`--the cgit at https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gzip.git/tree/algorithm.doc is not available, but that file was by far the best description of the 1977 ziv/le= mpel approach I could find (after a day or two searching) on the internet, inclu= ding the paper itself (I do not think streaming compression is a well-formed pro= blem statement and gzip effectively covers the space). But the jobserver webpage as-is seems to be visible to search engines alrea= dy! So there is no discoverability issue here, or any problem. Just: I have attempted similarly-framed problems to the jobserver before se= veral times, and learned so much from this wonderful document. I can conclude her= e. Thanks, d@nny