I got a lot out of this book: it has taken my understanding of Make forward by leaps, and in ways that reading tutorials and the man-page never managed.I came to Make from IDE's that do things for you, and despite using Make to build existing projects I didn't do much with it myself. Recently I needed to create my own makefile. Make is so complex that its difficult to find good information that goes beyond the very basics but isn't full of the strange incantations of Make gurus.
This book helped me bridge the gap. It explains clearly the simple stuff, and it takes you through the intermediate stuff. There are chapters beyond where I needed, so I can't tell you if it is good at introducing the advanced stuff.
I learned that make is a very powerful tool, with a powerful embedded programming language. I learned how to get my jobs done with it, and some of what I could maybe do if I needed to at some point. My makefiles are much bigger now, but they are also more powerful - performing backups, version control checkouts, creating release builds and installers, applying security. All jobs I used to do by hand with lots of icon-clicking, but now can be done seemlessly. All stuff I wouldn't have had confidence to try without the help from this book.
The only criticism of the book is that it jumps around a bit (or it seemed to for me). I guess this a side-effect of it being written by several people over several years. Some chapters use material that hasn't been introduced yet, and others go back over stuff that's been amply covered before.
Its not a major criticism (hence the 4 stars) and a couple of trips to the Index got me through. I'd definitely recommend this book if you want to take more control over your large project builds.
