Yes. Cargo and Maven is where it's at. It's clear to me that any build system that's NOT based on a declarative file format and strong project model is a night

Yes. Cargo and Maven is where it's at. It's clear to me that any build system that's NOT based on a declarative file format and strong project model is a nightmare waiting to happen. Each generation of maintainer will add it's own customizations until it becomes a super specific brittle undocumented jumbled mess that's nigh impossible to work with and that prevents refactoring of project code.