ZIM vs PROGRESS

[Brandon S. Allbery]

As quoted from <383 at dasher.SanDiego.NCR.COM> by jtc at dasher.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jeffrey T. Carter):
+---------------
| In article <5136 at dasys1.UUCP> tbetz at dasys1.UUCP (Tom Betz) writes:
| >     3:  Zim's self-documentation features far outstrip Progress's.  
| > One example - when one adds or deletes a field from a file, one needs 
| > must recompile any compiled procedures using that file.  Zim is kind 
| > enough to tell you which procedures need to be recompiled, so you are 
| > less likely to miss one.  This could save a lot of grief in an OLTP 
| > system!
| 
|     We use makefile's to solve this problem.  Please see make(1).
+---------------

Could you enlighten me as to how make(1) can determine that a small part of
a single file has changed and determine which dependencies have changed?
Since Progress stores everything in a single file, there's no way to make a
recompile of procedures dependent on changes to the data dictionary except
by kluges (i.e. dump the data dictionary to a file after every change made
to it) -- and no way whatever to recompile only the procedures dependent on
a particular table.

No 4GL that I am familiar with handles this automatically, although Accell
IDS comes close.  (Please note that I say nothing about 4GLs which I am *not*
familiar with; I would be pleased to discover a 4GL which tracked that
information for me.)
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, uunet!marque!ncoast!allbery			DELPHI: ALLBERY
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