I'm not sure why people compare cmake and make - cmake is essentially a makefile generator to handle automatic dependency tracking. You can even generate other types other types of build files (ninja, visual studio, etc). Not to just point your comment out because I see this all the time, but I don't understand where this confusion is coming from.
Well, if anything, I think it demonstrates that Makefile is something that should be compiled, not written by hand
edit: and for context, this is usually what happens anyway, since autoconf does it too. it's hard to think of a major project with a manually edited Makefile
You can declare your project structure, metadata, and other build/install/test logic in either. They're thinking about their use cases, not the language and workflow used to achieve them.
