Yes, you still have to make sure the underlying commands work because Make doesnt provide anything to isolate the commands. But that is also sort of my point: make is nothing but a generic task runner on top of what you are already doing. Its just about having commands and conventions that dont change depending on the underlying systems.

I agree that blaze is the better option, but all the benefits it provides comes with a greater up-front cost, where its not necessarily possible to drop-in on a project and run with. Also notable is that blaze is inspired by and is a replacement for make. So in a lot of ways, make is a poor mans blaze now.