> what I don't like is that their solution is still dependent of the file date of the script and all its dependencies. While usually accurate, file dates can be

> what I don't like is that their solution is still dependent of the file date of the script and all its dependencies. While usually accurate, file dates can be misleading I'm curious what you mean by that. File dates are what "make" and all the other builders are built upon. If they weren't to be trusted then you could never compile programs correctly... > not to mention the performance hit of doing stat() on all the related files. The thing is stats are really really fast. Check onedognight's benchmark above (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=800778 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=800778). On my server I get 1.6 million stats per second.