As for the problem of cross-platform portability with new make-tools, and the complaint about having to learn a new language with make-replacements (two complaints raised in the posts comments), it might be possible to have a simple shell-script build the build-system, which then builds your code.
I made such a thing for C++ years ago. It adds a header and a footer to your pure C++ build-script, compiles it, and then runs it (compiling your program). It also included extension libraries that did some more advanced things, such as detect local dependencies, but still was very toy-like and unpolished. I never advertised it widely, especially after I started to use Ruby instead of C++ for the project it was related to.
Still, the basic idea of including the build-system in source-form with ones code might be interesting to some people... at least makes it easy to fix, deliver, and extend.
I made such a thing for C++ years ago. It adds a header and a footer to your pure C++ build-script, compiles it, and then runs it (compiling your program). It also included extension libraries that did some more advanced things, such as detect local dependencies, but still was very toy-like and unpolished. I never advertised it widely, especially after I started to use Ruby instead of C++ for the project it was related to.
Still, the basic idea of including the build-system in source-form with ones code might be interesting to some people... at least makes it easy to fix, deliver, and extend.
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=3730... (unix / linux only)