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Discussion on: Makefiles and alternatives?

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smac89

In your search for make alternatives, remember that make is primarily concerned with input/output of files, and managing dependencies between tasks which create those files.

The ability to run arbitrary commands, is just a sideeffect. If your goal is to run arbitrary commands, then tools like npm, yarn, sake, robo, just, will do just fine.

If your goal is to find an alternative to make, then you really should be asking about alternative build tools, and I've found tools like cmake, and ninja to be quite good. Alternative to Makefile itself can be CMakeLists.txt or meson.build.