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"I usually move more complicated script put of Makefiles."

We probably all should. But it is valuable a few different ways to have everything in a single file.

Even though it's an ugly mess having a script within another script, with make variables mixed with shell variables mixed with make logic mixed with shell logic mixed with child proc output... the task at hand wants bits from both worlds at the same time, so the mess is also the value.

You can rig up alternative answers for each of those, but really it just means make should probably have a more generic scripting language itself so you don't have to leave it to get something done, like how you don't have to leave awk to do non-record-processing stuff. People don't, but you can basically write anything you want in awk just like in shell or python.

Or it should have less, be intentionally so limited that you can't embed any significant logic in the makefile and so it all lives somewhere else, either way, so long as it's all together, either all in the makefile or all in something the makefile runs.



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