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by solipsism 3760 days ago
Wouldn't "it's not appropriate for the task" be a better reason not to use something than "it's not made for the task"? Don't you have any better reasons at all? Does make bring out people's conservative side or something?

Let me ask you this. Would you sit on a tree stump? How about kill a fly with a newspaper? Sometimes things are great for purposes for which they weren't originally intended.
1 comments
aikah 3760 days ago
> Does make bring out people's conservative side or something?

Misuse of tools in software development is why we end up with broken software, useless solutions that solve stupid problems because the problem wasn't well understood as first place, and first and foremost unnecessary dependencies. That's why we end up with this makefile "hack".

Now explain what it's got to do with "conservatism". bad practices != innovation .

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solipsism 3760 days ago
Do you really believe any use of a tool in a way that wasn't intended is a "bad practice"? Is there no more subtlety or thought to it than that? This adherence to an ultra-simplistic black-and-white rule is absolutely a form of conservatism.

If you think this particular use of make is a "bad practice", then argue why it is! If there's no better reason than "This use isn't as intended!" then your opinion won't have much weight with people.

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