Among other things, now you have to maintain a set of dummy targets. If you have a variable (possibly generated) that is basically A_MESS_OF_FILES := foo bar

Among other things, now you have to maintain a set of dummy targets. If you have a variable (possibly generated) that is basically A_MESS_OF_FILES := foo bar zot You now have to create dummy targets for bar, baz, and zot and not forget to add them. Or maybe break it into MAIN_FILE := foo SUBORDINATE_FILES := bar zot foo: baz sudo make me a foo $(SUBORDINATE_FILES): %: foo