For those who know Clearcase, and winking in. Well, there was a team that had a 2 hour java build and they were suffering. Nothing was working right.
One could argue that using Clearcase and Clearmake was the error.. and even back then as a PFY I'd agree.
But help them I must. So I wrote a makefile, that wrote makefiles, that would then compile all the code into /tmp, and copy the jar back into place.
Because... Clearcase tracks every file you touch, it is critical, you ONLY touch your inputs, do not produce extra .class files where it can see them, or you'll end up with a bunch of files all interdependent and confused.
Their build went from ~2hrs to about ~5 minutes when I was done. Less if it "winked" in everything.
... The amount of good, stupid can do is amazing.