Makefiles work at the file level. This works at the abstract syntax tree level. If you change a file that many other files depend on Makefiles will recompile

Makefiles work at the file level. This works at the abstract syntax tree level. If you change a file that many other files depend on Makefiles will recompile all those files. This approach will only recompile the parts affected by the change in AST which will likely be significantly less.