Over here in crazytown I'm using Makefiles to automate system deployments. I thought it was insane at first but actually I've come around to it; Make hits that

Over here in crazytown I'm using Makefiles to automate system deployments. I thought it was insane at first but actually I've come around to it; Make hits that sweet spot of being ubiquitous, simple, and flexible. There's a little bit of a learning curve but once you're over that initial hurdle it's pretty straightforward, especially for one-way operations, e.g. install without uninstall, build without clean, etc.