Because make is a huge PITA

When step one of using a tool is to disable the tools primary benefit (everything is phone) you’re reaching for the wrong tool. Like it or lump it, make deploy is much neater than docker build -t foo . && docker tag foo $item && docker login && docker push && helm apply

I wish there was a flag for make which set it to be a command runner by default for the current makefile.

Make's clear benefit is laying out a process as a series of dependencies.

Why not just use shell scripts? Why additional complexity?

Shell scripts are additional complexity? I'm not sure what you mean. Adding structure reduces complexity.

No I mean Makefiles, how author uses them, are additional complexity over shell scripts.

The whole difference of Makefiles, their original idea was to not re-compile a target _file_ if it's already there. So if you need .PHONY -- you're using Makefiles wrongly.

Because they have different purposes. make is a build system, just is a command runner.

What's the distinction? What do just do better than make?

Make is hardly a build system

Honestly, it is because make is not written in Rust ;-)

This is a sect and global trend to reinvent and re-implement the wheel with the Rust :D