What the paper is actually saying (been a while since I read it but this was my takeaway a long time ago) is that make works well, just don't call it recursivel

What the paper is actually saying (been a while since I read it but this was my takeaway a long time ago) is that make works well, just don't call it recursively. For example if you use inclusion to add additional targets rather than re-invoking make recursively to build them, then make can do its job well, with an accurate view of dependencies, without a bunch of the pitfalls.