> Large build systems written using Shake tend to be significantly simpler, while also running faster. If your project can use a canned build system (e.g. Visual Studio, cabal) do that; if your project is very simple use a Makefile; otherwise use Shake.
For what it's worth, if I remember right, Shake has some support for interpreting Makefiles, too.
> [...] the way more complicated syntax of Shake [...]
For context, Shake uses Haskell syntax, because your 'Shakefile' is just a normal Haskell program that happens to use Shake as a library and then compiles to a bespoke build system.
Also:
> The original motivation behind the creation of Shake was to allow rules to discover additional dependencies after running previous rules, allowing the build system to generate files and then examine them to determine their dependencies – something that cannot be expressed directly in most build systems. However, now Shake is a suitable build tool even if you do not require that feature.
> Large build systems written using Shake tend to be significantly simpler, while also running faster. If your project can use a canned build system (e.g. Visual Studio, cabal) do that; if your project is very simple use a Makefile; otherwise use Shake.
For what it's worth, if I remember right, Shake has some support for interpreting Makefiles, too.
> [...] the way more complicated syntax of Shake [...]
For context, Shake uses Haskell syntax, because your 'Shakefile' is just a normal Haskell program that happens to use Shake as a library and then compiles to a bespoke build system.
Also:
> The original motivation behind the creation of Shake was to allow rules to discover additional dependencies after running previous rules, allowing the build system to generate files and then examine them to determine their dependencies – something that cannot be expressed directly in most build systems. However, now Shake is a suitable build tool even if you do not require that feature.