The last sentence in the article caught my eye
[F]or C/C++ developers and
students interested in learning to
program in C/C++ rather than users of
Linux. This is because the compiling
of source code is made simple in
GNU/Linux by the use of the ‘make’
command.
I have always used gcc to compile my C/C++ programs, whereas javac to compile my Java programs. I have only used make to install programs to my computer by configure/make/make install.
It seems that you can compile apparently all your programs with the command make.
What is the difference between make and gcc?
Well … gcc is a compiler, make is a tool to help build programs. The difference is huge. You can never build a program purely using make; it’s not a compiler. What make does it introduce a separate file of “rules”, that describes how to go from source code to finished program. It then interprets this file, figures out what needs to be compiled, and calls gcc for you. This is very useful for larger projects, with hundreds or thousands of source code files, and to keep track of things like compiler options, include paths, and so on.