Most make tools indeed suck, but some don't. And Make itself also sucks -- it was just there first. djb/apenwarr's "redo" is a good make alternative, infinite

Most make tools indeed suck, but some don't. And Make itself also sucks -- it was just there first. djb/apenwarr's "redo" is a good make alternative, infinitely simpler and about as capable. tup is a good make alternative, that does away with dependency definitions, recursive makes, etc. It just works and works quickly.