Ok, but your original criticism stated that solving this in cron is bad because the program may be run outside of cron:
* It's not just cron that can cause concurrent execution, and if that matters you generally want to robustly prevent it - not just if cron is the executor.*
So you did not like that exclusion only worked when triggered from cron. But in your case it also only works when triggered from your script. So cron just made your script an integrated feature and you’re essentially criticizing your own solution.
* It's not just cron that can cause concurrent execution, and if that matters you generally want to robustly prevent it - not just if cron is the executor.*
So you did not like that exclusion only worked when triggered from cron. But in your case it also only works when triggered from your script. So cron just made your script an integrated feature and you’re essentially criticizing your own solution.