A Case for make

The make command has been a central part of the UNIX* programming environment for over fifteen years. An excellent example of a UNIX system software tool, it has a simple model and delegates most of its work to other commands. By dealing with general relationships between files and commands, make easily adapts to diverse applications. This generality, however, has become a handicap when compared with specialized integrated programming environments. Integrated environments are collections of tightly coupled (seamless) programs that can take advantage of programming language details not available to the loosely coupled (tool-based) make model. There are limitations to both approaches, but it would seem that the make model, at least for software construction, is reaching the breaking point. make can be revitalized by abandoning restrictive implementation details and by extending the basic model to meet modern software construction demands. This paper explores these demands and changes and their affects on the UNIX system tool-based programming style.