I use Makefiles to build Go applications for two reasons: it is available on the systems we develop on, and it provides a real alternative to writing bash scrip

I use Makefiles to build Go applications for two reasons: it is available on the systems we develop on, and it provides a real alternative to writing bash scripts. Build scripts are bad. They tend to lead to complexity over time. It is very easy to just add some ad-hoc magic to solve a problem than to sit down and think about how one should structure things better. This makes it harder for people unfamiliar with the codebase to understand what is going on. Then you need to choose a language. Bash? Well, not a lot of people know Bash all that well. And it isn't a very nice language to express the kinds of things you need to deal with to solve build problems. People don't bother learning Bash because Bash isn't a very useful language. Python? What version? What libraries? Now you need to choose what tooling to use for maintaining your tooling. The embedded world uses lots of Python. The short version: it only makes things worse. People waste time having to learn how to maintain the tooling. If they don't, they will struggle. Makefiles were made for building C. They are tailored to how to C toolchain works. When you make "proper" use of Makefiles this can provide you with a lot of help. If you program C. If you are programming in other languages: not so much. The good thing about using Makefiles with as little magic as possible is that it forces people to keep things simple. It is okay that you don't make use of 99% of its features. Not everything has to be a demonstration of your mad <tool> skillz. That being said: it would be nice to have a more approachable alternative to Make that can be used across languages. Something that promotoes declarative builds rather than allow scripting. Because if you allow people to write code to build things, you are not going to be able to understand most people's builds without setting aside time to study them.