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Okay but clearly none of this is "the point" of make, so your original comment is still baffling.
by rebelos 4y ago
Okay but clearly none of this is "the point" of make, so your original comment is still baffling.
- hedora 4y agoThe point of make is that it's not only useful for building software. Take a look at the built-in implicit rules: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Catalogue-of-Rules.html#Catalogue-of-Rules https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Catalogue... There are two things to note: (1) you can turn them off so they don't get in the way of other use cases, (2) they include non-build stuff like version control, linting, and document generation. There's also a whole chapter on ar file maintenance. This is mostly useful for linking these days, but ar is the precursor to tar, so this used to also be useful for running filesystem backups: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Archives.html#Archives https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Archives....
- vehementi 4y agoYour point is that make has uses beyond that. That is not "the point of make"
- lelandbatey 4y agoNo, that absolutely is the point of `make`. You quoted the "overview of make" page[0] which does say "The make utility automatically determines which pieces of a large program need to be recompiled, and issues commands to recompile them." However, that same page, about 5 lines down, expands to say: > Indeed, 'make' is not limited to programs. You can use it to describe any task where some files must be updated automatically from others whenever the others change. Which is exactly what the original poster is claiming.
- jamespo 4y agoThat's the beauty of open ended UNIX tools