cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/4908824

There are two major flavours of variables in GNU Make: “simple” and “recursive”.

While simple variables are quite simple and easy to understand, they can be limiting at times. On the other hand, recursive variables are powerful yet tricky.

…

There is exactly one rule to recall when using recursive variables…

🧠 The value of a recursive variable is computed every time it is expanded.

  • AProfessional@lemmy.world
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    3 years ago

    Having written a lot of makefiles, I just think it’s best avoided these days. Use something like Meson, or even CMake.

    • bahmanm@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      TBH I use whatever build tool is the better fit for the job, be it Gradle, SBT or Rebar.

      But for some (presumably subjective) reason, I like GNU Make quite a lot. And whenever I get the chance I use it - esp since it’s somehow ubiquitous nowadays w/ all the Linux containers/VMs everywhere and Homebrew on Mac machines.