His example could be improved a little: file "target" => %w(prereq1 prereq2 prereq3 prereq4) |t| sh "update", t.name, *t.prerequisites end Now,

His example could be improved a little: file "target" => %w(prereq1 prereq2 prereq3 prereq4) |t| sh "update", t.name, *t.prerequisites end Now, call me crazy, but I actually prefer "t.prerequisites" over "$^". If I were writing makefiles all the time, perhaps I'd appreciate Make's concise but obscure syntax. But maintaining makefiles takes only a small proportion of my time, and more syntax I have to learn, the more trouble I'm going to have remembering it. Rakefiles are written in Ruby, a language I already use for development. The additional syntax I need to remember to use Rake is therefore very small. It's also a heck of a lot easier to work with Rake if you happen to want to do something a little complex or unusual!