I believe most makefiles I see these days — pretty much all except the ones I write myself — are the monstrosities that come out of automake. If that is the fir

I believe most makefiles I see these days — pretty much all except the ones I write myself — are the monstrosities that come out of automake. If that is the first impression new programmers get of make, then make is dead, because nobody is going to want to touch it with a bargepole.