I love Make in concept and kind of hate it in practice. There is sooo much incidental complexity and so many warts to work around. I think it's a concept that is ripe for a new approach that thoughtfully keeps the good, ditches the bad, and maybe even adds some useful capabilities that aren't already there.
But of course I'm immediately skeptical of this idea a la https://xkcd.com/927/ (Standards). For instance, maybe this is what npm and all the rest thought they were doing. Certainly Rake in the ruby world tried to do this, and I never really liked it, so clearly they missed the mark somehow, at least for me. But then when I feel discouraged about the ability to improve on things, I think about how I felt this way when I first heard about Git. Why would you implement a new source control system when we already have subversion? Sure, svn has its frustrations and warts, but this new thing is just gonna have its own frustrations and warts and now we'll just have another frustrating warty thing and we haven't really gained anything. And this is totally true! Git is super frustrating and warty. Except that it's also way better than subversion, much faster and far more flexible. It was a revelation when I started using it. So I think back to Linus when he was thinking about creating git and think that he probably didn't have this discouraged uncertainty about improving things; he just had ideas for a better way and he went out and did it. (And yes, I know it was influenced by bitkeeper and other DVCs exist, so it's not like he invented the concept, but my point stands.)
But of course I'm immediately skeptical of this idea a la https://xkcd.com/927/ (Standards). For instance, maybe this is what npm and all the rest thought they were doing. Certainly Rake in the ruby world tried to do this, and I never really liked it, so clearly they missed the mark somehow, at least for me. But then when I feel discouraged about the ability to improve on things, I think about how I felt this way when I first heard about Git. Why would you implement a new source control system when we already have subversion? Sure, svn has its frustrations and warts, but this new thing is just gonna have its own frustrations and warts and now we'll just have another frustrating warty thing and we haven't really gained anything. And this is totally true! Git is super frustrating and warty. Except that it's also way better than subversion, much faster and far more flexible. It was a revelation when I started using it. So I think back to Linus when he was thinking about creating git and think that he probably didn't have this discouraged uncertainty about improving things; he just had ideas for a better way and he went out and did it. (And yes, I know it was influenced by bitkeeper and other DVCs exist, so it's not like he invented the concept, but my point stands.)
So maybe someone could make a better Make?