Introduction

ExMake is a modern, scriptable, dependency-based build tool loosely based on the principles behind the POSIX Make utility. It is an attempt to replace Make with a 21st-century version of the tool that makes scripting trivial.

ExMake is not a 'be all; end all' build tool. It only provides the fundamental components such as dependency tracking and job scheduling. Just like Make, it's a tool that will most likely be used to construct a build system rather than being the build system itself. In other words, it's not a direct competitor to Autotools and similar suites, per se.

The main selling points of ExMake are:

• It features the general-purpose programming language Elixir for scripting.
• There is built-in support for libraries that can provide macros and functions.
• Recursion is a first-class citizen, so recursive invocations and a job server are not necessary.
• Compiled scripts, the dependency graph, and the environment table are all cached.
• Recipes are just regular Elixir expressions, so they can do much more than simple shell invocations.

ExMake improves on Make in many other ways. For more information, see the FAQ.