Question

What forces are at work keeping crufty old Make (with or without makefile generator tools) prominent as a build tool? Is it deficiencies in alternatives that keep them from being widely adopted, or insufficient publicity, or does something about Make keep it in place?

Despite Make’s many weaknesses and difficulties dealing with large projects
(e.g. see http://freshmeat.net/articles/what-is-wrong-with-make) it appears to still be more widely used than newer, improved alternatives such as Scons, Jam, Rake, Cook, and others.

Are there measurable benefits to the alternatives, or are the “market shares” due mostly to opinion and experience of team leaders?

Answer 1

• simplicity – easy to do simple things
• ubiquity – some version is on your system
• speed – fast enough for most things
• expressive – pretty good match to the job
• nonobvious complexity – mainly large projects expose problems