Rating: 
Summary: Solid but lacking in some areas
Review: The author does an excellent job of covering a complex subject. However, from the view of a fairly new unix user assigned to manage a complex project, the book did not introduce and explain the subject in as clear a manner as needed. It is a book that must be read more than once in order for all of the pieces to come together. The use of object libraries was treated on only a couple of pages but not to the depth needed for this user to produce make files that will efficiently compile and link the source files and libraries used in his project.
David Hamill
Rating:
Summary: Dry, but containing all of the necessary information
Review: The style of the book is somewhat dry, but it covers all of the information that one would expect of a thorough book on the subject. Clear comparisons are made between different versions of make, and test scripts are available for download to test your version of make.
However, a section is needed which provides a clear answer to the question "What features can I use to have truly portable makefiles?" Also, a commons tips and tricks section, which could cover some of the ways that make can be used to accomplish other tasks (related to the building of an application). The information is all there, but the organization needs some work.
Overall, a good book. Read it once, and then keep it close by on your shelf for reference. Anyone who has had to re-write makefiles because of porting issues will find this book very useful.
Rating: 
Summary: The book explain make clearly
Review: This was a good reference book when it originally came out. But these days, who doesn't use GNU make? O'Reilly should come out with either an updated version that covers GNU make as well as vanilla make or they should release two separate books.
Rating:
Summary: we really need an updated edition that covers gnu make
Review: This was a good reference book when it originally came out. But these days, who doesn't use GNU make? O'Reilly should come out with either an updated version that covers GNU make as well as vanilla make or they should release two separate books.
Rating:
Summary: You may even find this book helpful in Windows
Review: Unfortunately there is nothing quite like this book (at least that I have ever found) for Windows nmake. In a former life I was a Unix programmer and I found this book invaluable, especially for creating custom suffix rules and recursive makefiles. Now that I am a Windows developer, I still refer to this book on occasion. There is a lot of information packed in this book. Read it carefully, as it is easy to miss important information. I have marked up my copy with a highlighter pen and have a number of Post-It's stuck on those important sections. Perhaps a better layout, with wider margins and bulleted notes in the margins would have made it more readable and easier to find things after it has sat on the bookshelf for a while. For the most part this book also applies to the Microsoft nmake utility (comes with Visual C++). I have yet to find anything equivalent for nmake, and the MSDN information on nmake is severely lacking. Apparently the folks at Microsoft believe everyone uses the built-in development environment in VC++, but for managing and building complex projects it is absolutely necessary to write and maintain your own makefiles.
| 
