I kinda like these make-ish systems, but they all have one problem: Make is already on any Linux and Mac, and is pretty easy to get on Windows as well. (It’s a real pity they don’t include it in the Git Bash!) Just using the lowest common denominator is a big argument for Make IMO.
You have to handle dependencies either way to build a project - what’s one more tiny executable?
This criticism might make sense for some non-vim editor because you might have to ssh into a remote location where you can’t install stuff. But if you should be able to build a project and thus install its required dependencies, then you might as well add one additional word to the install command.
On Windows if you don't use WSL, Cygwin gets you 95% of the way there. I've been using it for decades to develop CLI tools and backbends in Python and a few other languages. You learn the quirks in about 1 month, add some tooling like apt-cyg and map C: to /c and you're off to the races.
