[robert-wallis]

I'm suppose I'm in the minority of developers that _don't_ think we need to learn more build tools.

make, configure, automake, autoconf, MSBuild, Apache Ant, rake, gradle, jake, grunt, gulp, fez

Sorry, I'm sure your system is nice and organized. But now you've introduced one more build dependency that will make projects based on Fez just a little more difficult to on-board.

[jdlshore]

I couldn't disagree more strongly. Sure, make is a fine (if quirky) tool, but I would hate to live in a world where that was the only build tool available. There's good reasons people choose not to use it.

Fact is, people want different things from their tools. Each of the ones you mentioned has its own strengths and weaknesses. They tend to be better than their predecessors in some way, for some specific need. And this is how progress is made... via a thriving marketplace of [ build tools, languages, frameworks, libraries ]. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[robert-wallis]

One of the great things about open-source, is when you discover a weakness in some tool you like, you can modify that tool and submit a patch. Or you can learn from the source of one tool and add another tool to the marketplace. When the marketplace is saturated, patching or modifying the popular tools is preferable to me.

Also, I would prefer developers spend more time making general applications and less time making tools for other developers. I'm not saying people shouldn't make great dev tools, I'm saying more people should make great applications, and less people should make great dev tools.

[couchand]

I agree, it's great to be able to fix problems with open source projects. But there's not always one tool to rule them all

Fact is, people want different things from their tools.