[jjoonathan]

Is there something about the (admittedly very difficult and thankless) task of automating builds that justifies re-inventing the wagon-wheel of languages? Because that was my specific complaint, and there's a reason why it was specific.

[fragmede]

Because it seems easy. And easy things done "wrong" require re-invention.

There should be a way to $FOO. Well, there's a way to do it in a Makefile but figuring that out is harder than should be, and doesn't make sense when you finally do figure it out.

"Well that way is stupid. Here's how I'd do it:"