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GNU Make evaluation
December 23, 2019

GNU Make evaluation

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with GNU Make

GNU Make is being used as a build script in our product software development, specifically for embedded software development.
  • Performance and accuracy of cross-module dependencies.
  • Simple to write and easy to understand.
  • Constrained by the tab to start for command.
  • Cannot append something on the end of a variable.
  • Streamline the build based on a lot of existing component being done, reusable.
  • Commonly understandable, therefore, rampup effort is small.
A lot of existing projects we had been running are based on GNU Make, it does not make sense to move away from that. To build on top of those, GNU Make had been used. A lot of experienced engineers in the team are already familiar with the GNU Make syntax and structure and no rampup time required.
In general, it is fair to say the support is sufficient although we do not deal with support directly. There are a lot of forum people chiming in with suggestions or recommendations of particular usage or issues we run into. Since it is open software, patch and fixes will be available from time to time. A lot of information is available in the web now for knowing GNU Make from learning, example, teaching, etc.

Do you think GNU Make delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GNU Make's feature set?

Yes

Did GNU Make live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of GNU Make go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GNU Make again?

Yes

Makefiles are machine-readable documentation that make your workflow reproducible. If the build process is a very continuous flow of operations within scope, it will do it well and also act as a documentation of all the dependence. For some long-term projects, Make has been used extensively and being maintained to do the job.