I think this is a cop out. Simple grammar does not mean easily understood syntax - particularly given that make is essentially dependent on the entire shell it

I think this is a cop out. Simple grammar does not mean easily understood syntax - particularly given that make is essentially dependent on the entire shell it's operating in (at a minimum, usually GNU tooling). Plus - At least in my experience it tends to deteriorate into many developers playing "code golf" with the commands: using obscure flags and inscrutable commands to save a few lines in the file. Worse, while splitting into several makefiles is possible - a lot of the tooling stops working particularly well (ex: autocomplete no longer works on tasks that are "included") Basically - I find that the only consistent way to use makefiles on a moderately sized team is a rather strict "one script per task" rule, with the script ideally written in the same language as the project. But at that point I might as well just use a native task runner in that language anyways.