Dependencies for applications should be as follows Each application should depend on all of its sources. Each application should depend on the last modification time of its libraries, but not so as to cause them to be remade. Concerning the last point, timestamp files could be used if necessary to record the last update time for the libraries. The rebuild would happen automatically at consortium sites after the latest revision of the code had been fetched, and will be required to have been completed by the following morning. Eventually this job may become too much for one machine, and we should investigate the possibility of spreading the load over several machines.
GNU make allows parallel execution, but only within the same machine.
However, this seems like a promising point to start from. Later, with the advent of networks, a much more flexible model was adopted - that of a device server. The aips2-tools exploder reached a consensus on avoiding alternate load areas. The device server model is the obvious solution, and has the obvious benefit of providing net access. The use of shared memory may increase the efficiency of servers running on the same machine as their clients.