RE: why are all prerequisites timestamps checked, even after one is found to be newer than target??

[Mark Galeck (CW)]

I see.  I grepped $? and it seems to me there is no way to prevent that 
variable from being populated, so all the timestamps will always be checked, 
nothing I can do about, right?  

> After finding one that was newer, it nevertheless continued checking
> all the other ones.  

>Well, one reason that jumps immediately to mind is that make needs to
populate the automatic variable "$?" (see the manual).