Also, many people using rake already are often biased by how Rails uses it, but it's much more than that, and can easily be used as a make replacement, complete with freshness checks and rules.
There was an article specifically avout that on the interwebs but I can't find it anymore. These ones cover some bits as well, although they're a tad heavier on using Ruby code.
Rake is fully programmable in Ruby. Just is a bit less flexible, but it doesn't require learning Ruby, and it's quite pleasant to use.
https://ruby.github.io/rake/