First discovered in the 1970s, make still turns up today as the central engine in most programming projects, even building the Linux kernel. In the third edition of the classic Managing Projects with GNU make, readers will learn why this utility continues to hold the top position in project build software, despite many younger competitors. The premise behind make is simple: after you change source files and want to rebuild your program or other output files, make checks timestamps to see what has changed and rebuild what you need, without wasting time rebuilding other files. But on this simple principle, make layers a rich collection of options that lets you manipulate multiple directories, build different versions of programs for different platforms, and customize your build in other ways. This edition focuses on the version of GNU make, which should become the industry standard. It is also popular because the software is free and provides a version for almost all platforms, including versions for Microsoft Windows as part of the free Cygwin project. Managing Projects with GNU make, 3rd Edition provides guidelines on meeting the needs of large, modern projects.