OK I'll concede that make on its own in its most basic form isn't all that bad (although it's not hard to make anything look good by comparing it with Ant); it'

OK I'll concede that make on its own in its most basic form isn't all that bad (although it's not hard to make anything look good by comparing it with Ant); it's the autotools toolchain that makes it such a jungle. Which is, strictly speaking, separate from make, and is what I was mostly agitating against.