If you write C/C++ code on a Unix system you probably have used GNU Make at some point. Even if you have used it for years, you may not be aware of some of its simpler and yet powerful features. Here are a handful of what I suspect are lesser-known capabilities of GNU Make that make me more productive.

Everything described here is documented completely in the GNU Make Manual, so be sure to check that for complete details. You can do unimaginably complicated things with GNU Make if you digest the entire contents of that manual. My goal, though, is to do the most work with the least effort, so rather than employ all of GNU Make's features I try to exploit the fewest that benefit me the most. This is the set I describe here.