face it: everything sucks. make, ant, scons, jam, bjam, vsmake, maven, raven, whatever, it all sucks. part of the problem is that maybe purely declarative is the right way to go, but then again maybe it isn't. i don't think anybody really knows the right answer, yet. well, actually i guess maybe the universal answer is perhaps to be taken from CTM: start with a purely declarative core, and if that doesn't work (of course, you have to learn how to judge that line) then you are allowed to maybe invoke mutation and imperativeness.

i dunno.

i do know that no matter what system is claimed to be Right or The Best, if it doesn't have a source-line-stepping type debugger then it is bull-hooey.