- small projects should also lead to small dependency graphs, so I don't really get why it's bad there. - I'm just not a big fan of automating the configuratio

- small projects should also lead to small dependency graphs, so I don't really get why it's bad there. - I'm just not a big fan of automating the configuration of a build system - you build/put yet another machine around a machine. As long as it works - ok, but as soon as you run into unexpected behavior it will become a huge time sink to debug. When you update the Makefile contents manually you take ownership over everything and you get a deeper understanding on how everything works together, right down to the command parameters sent to compiler and linker. If you don't want to do that I'd suggest switching to something like cmake - if it has to 'magic', at least have the behavior specified in a coherent manner.