make is the glue that holds the great majority of Unix programming projects together. And yet its functionality is not limited to managing programming projects alone, but uses for it can be found in any project burdened with inter-file dependencies. Managing Projects with make by Andrew Oram and Steve Talbott is an excellent guide to this amazingly useful tool. Indeed the book deserves to be rated right up there with the camel and the bat as a classic in the O'Reilly bestiary.

Managing Projects with make provides a thorough introduction to the make utility found on most Unix platforms. The book provides excellent coverage from the ground up, so even if you've never used make before, with a good reading (or two) of the book you will have all the groundwork covered that you need to begin using make for your own projects. Helpful examples are provided throughout the text and clearly demonstrate each concept.

The book starts by introducing its readers to makefiles, and then proceeding with chapters focusing on the use of macros, suffix rules, and shell commands within makefiles. Chapters covering various means of project management with make as well as advice on troubleshooting follow, and a short reference is provided as an appendix. The book is smaller than many of the O'Reilly collection, but that's part of its beauty. It gets right to the point and gives you just what you need without dumbing down anything.

Another nice point for the book is how the authors are very careful to point out where certain versions of make may not support the features they discuss. One appendix provides tests you can run to see which features are supported by your version of make.

One of the main things I like about this book is that it is pure content, with none of the fluff that seems to pervade many technical books these days. Indeed it was probably books of this sort that gave O'Reilly its reputation for excellent technical coverage. That it still provides relevant and useful content, despite its age (the first edition was published in 1983, with the latest printing in 1993) is evidence for its quality.

Overall Rating: 9/10