I see where you are coming from for C/C++ based projects, but for more higher level ones, this is being taken care of by the compilers themselves.
I use Makefiles all the time for dependency management, not necessarily for compiling code. For example, in a data analysis workflow, I’ll use a make file to manage the processing from ETL, extracting out whatever data I need, and finally, generating a figure. Whenever one step in the process is updated, the rest are automatically also run.
It’s not just for C!
(Although, it’s mainly used for C)
But without the “building” component to it, I found the name makedown confusing. Maybe that’s just me.
But I like the project overall. I’m still trying to get my head around the syntax, but it looks nice. I’m also not sure I’ll switch from keeping scripts like this in my $HOME/.local/bin directory, but I can see how this is an appealing way to work.