Am i the only one thinking that doing a simple compile is something that should be handled fully by the compiler and not the build tool. The compiler should aut

Am i the only one thinking that doing a simple compile is something that should be handled fully by the compiler and not the build tool. The compiler should automatically detect which files are being #included and allow for incremental compile based on this. The Typescript and SASS compilers are good examples of this, you just invoke it like 'tsc main.ts --watch' and it will automatically know that main.ts included other files and these will also be watched. If your compiler does not support this, the only way to build a proper dependency tree is 1. if the compiler can generate one in a standard format (gcc -MMd), 2. your buildtool knows as much about the language as the compiler does, 3. you write the dependency tree manually. 1. Is bad because it requires the compiler to support generating a wide range of dependency-graph formats, or every build tool must support the make syntax. 2. Is bad because the build-tool becomes one massive monolith and there is no way they can reliably support every language in the world. 3. Is bad because humans are lazy and make mistakes. For the build tool, this leaves it's responsibility to doing things before and after compilation (generating/preprocessing code, copy assests, run tests, deploy to staging), which usually means invoking arbiatry and custom shell-commands, the order of this is always so application-specific that #3 is inevitable. If doing these things are complicated, your build tool sucks, and sadly i found most build tools to fall into this category because they try #2 and want to be the center of the universe. Even doing a simple thing such as copying a file requires you to learn a new awkard xml-syntax, install the "copy-file-plugin" or write your own copy-file-plugin in the awkward syntax. What i would want is somthing with the simplicity of Gulp or Make, but with a bit more widespread syntax and more batteries included for file-manipulation, like Python would be perfect. Rake looks promising, maybe it makes it worth learning Ruby?