I don't know, Make is difficult because we are used to think in procedures and not in rules; and the rule and macro syntax is a bit weird; it takes time to mast

I don't know, Make is difficult because we are used to think in procedures and not in rules; and the rule and macro syntax is a bit weird; it takes time to master it. i have a makefile/make system that uses gnu make macros; (here http://mosermichael.github.io/cstuff/all/projects/2011/06/17.. http://mosermichael.github.io/cstuff/all/projects/2011/06/17.... ) this saves you from repeating the same make constructs many times over, in the following example you do a static library and executable. 1: TOPDIR=../.. 2: 3: # - declare build targets. (built with make) 4: TARGETS:=shlib slibuser 5: 6: # - slib target is a static library - 7: shlib_TYPE=lib 8: shlib_SRC=slib.c 9: 10: 11: # - slibuser target is a executable using slib - 12: slibuser_TYPE=exe 13: slibuser_SRC=slibuser.c slibuser2.c slibuser3.c 14: slibuser_LIBS=shlib 15: 16: include $(TOPDIR)/rules.make At a previous job they had an even more convoluted make system - it was simulating macros: the makefile was including another generic make file; this included make file was writing hidden files that contained the make rules ; then as the last step these generated files were included.