I'm not a C/C++ dev, and not familiar with how well C/C++ toolings improved. But I frequently deal with C/C++ codebases as an undergraduate student many years

I'm not a C/C++ dev, and not familiar with how well C/C++ toolings improved. But I frequently deal with C/C++ codebases as an undergraduate student many years ago. Some of them only provides a Makefile, which assume you already have the necessary libraries installed (or know how to install them and adjust the include paths). How to build the code? The usual cycle: make -> compile error - install lib A -> make -> another compile error -> install lib B -> .... repeat this until you got the thing built. Usins build tool like SCons makes your life easier. If it cannot the detect the installation of required libraries, it may throw errors before even compiling your code. Of course modern programming languages like Go, Rust, Nim etc typically have default package managers...