- MIT Page (Build Systems)
When programs are small, particularly when they fit in a single file, it is perfectly acceptable to simply invoke the compiler or interpreter directly. However, as programs grow in size it is helpful to add a bit more structure.
Make is a tool for building files based on the contents of other files. At its core, this is pretty much what we do as programmers, so Make is a pretty useful tool for us!
Make is based on the concept of targets and prerequisites. A target is something that can be built, and prerequisites are the building blocks out of which the target may be constructed. Take a look in the example-make/ directory for a Makefile that resizes images. We will go over this file in class.
It is becoming common for modern programming languages to ship a build system alongside the compiler / interpreter. A good example of this is the Go programming language, which includes an efficient build system.
Take a look at example-go for a tiny Go project and some instructions for building it.
We will take a look at a couple of real-world examples in class. They are briefly described below.
For a nice example of a Makefile, let's take a look at https://github.com/glesica/webpage. This is a minimalist system for creating a static web site. It relies on a Makefile to build a collection of Markdown documents into a functioning web site. We will look at the Makefile during lecture.