Last night I wrote a history of the automatic dependency schemes used
in Automake. I've checked it in to the Automake web pages. Read it
here, if you're interested:
http://sources.redhat.com/automake/dependencies.html
Teaser: it turns out that every dependency tracking scheme (not only
including our current one, but also including any other one I've ever
seen in use) has a flaw. Details in the paper.
Tom
