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I just had to deal with a large, handwritten Makefile when trying to package and cross compile something for buildroot.

Turns out it was easier to learn to use cmake and rewrite the relevant parts of the Makefile than fix everything in the Makefile that didn't work in a cross compilation scenario.

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If I had a nickel for every time a developer said “it was just easier to rewrite...” I’d be a rich man. It always seems easier to start from a clean slate and do a rewrite than to try to understand someone else’s code, but in the end you just wind up with a different set of hacks and complexities.

I often find Make easier to debug than CMake because it’s more transparent about which commands are being used and there are fewer files to inspect in the process.

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