I've only started using a Makefile ~two years ago when I started a big Go project at work, and I quite like it. There's a few caveats here and there - Makefile specific syntax, shell-script specific syntax, and whether I should put .PHONY in front of every command (I guess 'no unless you have a file with the exact same name'?), but it's quite compact and straightforward.

The most complicated command I have is something that removes a folder or set of files, invokes the swagger generator with a list of options, copies it to a target folder, and passes it through a formatter/processor. But it's very straightforward, and it's "just" shell script, not shell script wrapped in a JSON document, or some Java tool invoked indirectly through an XML configuration file like back in the day with Maven.