make IS an OS-agnostic tool, it's just not available by default on Windows. But it can absolutely be installed. Or you can bring the mingW/ binaries along wit

make IS an OS-agnostic tool, it's just not available by default on Windows. But it can absolutely be installed. Or you can bring the mingW/ binaries along with you. Even something as simple as installing git for windows will give you access to a decentish unix environment. staying inside rake, et al is fine if your software is simple enough to get away with it (by simple I mean self-contained without too many moving parts). But quite often you can't get away with that, and make becomes a good choice. I would also argue that if you're developing ruby on windows you're doing it wrong. You can do it, but I would personally never target Windows for a ruby app. been there, done that, have the scars to prove it. I would also add that installing all of that for node doesn't really seem to be simpler than using make, but that's just my old timer sensibilities coming into play.