754: Dependencies
| Dependencies |
 Title text: The prereqs for CPSC 357, the class on package management, are CPCS 432, CPSC 357, and glibc2.5 or later. |
[edit] Explanation
One of the responsibilities of a compiler (more pedantically, the linker) is dependency resolution, the process of identifying what other components are necessary in order to construct a target component. Those other components may in turn may have their own requirements, all of which must also be satisfied.
The comic envisions a course focusing on dependency resolution which has itself as a prerequisite. This dependency structure would send a naïve compiler into an infinite loop. In real life, the problem is solved by allowing an object to satisfy itself as a prerequisite. (You see this, for example, every time you compile a recursive function.)
The joke is that any student who successfully enrolls in the class already knows this solution because they must have employed it in order to get past the apparent infinite recursion in the class prerequisites.
Package management is a problem in software deployment similar to compiler dependency resolution, except that the dependencies are collections of files known as packages.
The title text posits a course on package management which is dependent not only on itself (recursive dependency), but also on the course presented in the main comic, which has a higher course number. Package managers resolve self-dependencies in much the same way as compilers do, but a dependency from a lower-numbered package to a higher-numbered package is typically disallowed because it can create cycles in what is supposed to be a tree structure. glibc is a commonly-used package on Unix systems. Its inclusion as a course prerequisite blurs the line between the course material and the course itself.
[edit] Transcript
- [A portion of a page from an imaginary course catalog.]
- A table with four columns labeled Department, Course, Description, and Prereqs. Under 'Department' it reads, "computer science". Under 'course' it reads, "CPSC 432". Under 'Description' it reads, "Intermediate compiler design, with a focus on dependency resolution." Under 'Prereqs' it reads, "CPSC 432".
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