Make isn’t just for building executables; if your nitpick is about make not having intimate knowledge of header files, you have a long way to go on your road to

Make isn’t just for building executables; if your nitpick is about make not having intimate knowledge of header files, you have a long way to go on your road to mastery of make. Make can be used for automation of many different tasks, for example web page rendering or database creation, to name a few. And, it has built in rules for handling header files correctly; you would do well to study and understand them.