If you think cmake is a good example of more complex than make, then you haven't seen automake/autoconf. The first thing I thought of. You can find tons of tons of configure scripts that check if you're running ancient versions of Unix, checks that a byte is 8 bits wide, and a ton of other pointless checks. They don't do anything with all that information, don't think for a moment that you can actually build the app on Irix, but the checks for it have been passed along for decades likes junk DNA.
Firstly, automake/autoconf is not `make`, but a different piece of software, and secondly, that you know all those details about it is because it is not black-box-like.
I never said it was. It's a script to generate a script to generate a makefile, more or less.
If it wasn't black box like, why do people keep blindly copying tests which check things which haven't been relevant for decades and in any case would require a ton of manual effort to actually use for something?
If you think cmake is a good example of more complex than make, then you haven't seen automake/autoconf. The first thing I thought of. You can find tons of tons of configure scripts that check if you're running ancient versions of Unix, checks that a byte is 8 bits wide, and a ton of other pointless checks. They don't do anything with all that information, don't think for a moment that you can actually build the app on Irix, but the checks for it have been passed along for decades likes junk DNA.
Firstly, automake/autoconf is not `make`, but a different piece of software, and secondly, that you know all those details about it is because it is not black-box-like.
I never said it was. It's a script to generate a script to generate a makefile, more or less.
If it wasn't black box like, why do people keep blindly copying tests which check things which haven't been relevant for decades and in any case would require a ton of manual effort to actually use for something?
I have seen both, and I consider them roughly similar.