Thank you for your kind response.
It seems to me, and as reported by others, that what Make does and what the Java build tools do have some fundamental differences. Some that come to mind are as follows:
1. When building C programs one calls the compiler for each source file. This is impractical with Java because of the javac startup time. Typically javac is called once with many source files at a time - but not the ones that are not out of date.
2. Typically, javac will be called to compile all out of date files in a directory rather than having to explicitly name each one in the build file.
3. Java build tools have the ability to download and cache files from remote repositories over the net.
Although I have more than 10 years experience working with Java, I have to admit that I am not completely clear about the Java build process since, on large project, I've used the IDE, ANT, Maven, or Gradle to do the work for me.
It is my semi-ignorant opinion that:
A. Make is not a good tool for building large, modern Java programs.
B. The things that would have to be added to make Make a practical Java / _javascript_ build tool is not that much.
C. (For _javascript_ build tools) The ability to run continuously. When Make detects a source file change it automatically kicks off a target file build.
Thanks.
Blake