> Why are people using timestamps in builds and what is the better alternative? Timestamps are often an implicit part of the build which leads to the same code

> Why are people using timestamps in builds and what is the better alternative? Timestamps are often an implicit part of the build which leads to the same code producing 'different' artifacts (e.g. file created timestamp, generated metadata about the build stored in the artifact itself). One alternative is to support explicitly defining the 'build timestamp' so all builds with the same timestamp produces the same artifact. This is what Maven does[0]; I'd imagine it's much harder for build systems that download and recompile dependencies. [0] https://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-reproducible-builds.html https://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-reproducible-buil...