Moving away from make

[Phil Holmes]

I understand it's been discussed before, but I am wondering whether it's 
worth thinking the unthinkable and considering moving away from make.  I 
know it's been used in loads of projects and is much loved, but actually, 
from a design perspective, it's appalling.  If I was writing a "make" system 
from scratch, I would describe dependencies in data structures that are 
viewable and editable, and have a separate program that uses those 
structures to determine which files need making.  Instead we have a fairly 
impenetrable system of makefiles that are created by (to me) a completely 
impenetrable autoconf system, and the only way of checking dependencies is 
to open all the makefiles (sourcefiles in effect) and read and understand 
each.  It's rather as if one had to read the LilyPond .cpp files to 
understand how to change a piece of music.

I've done 5 minutes research and have found SCons.  I've not gone into any 
more depth with that yet.  Does it seem worth looking into this, or 
something else, in more detail?

--
Phil Holmes