You can compile anything you wish without make, it just saves time and does it in the right order (lol if told to). For instance:

gcc -O2 -o zap2  zap2.c
[download]

So if you can read the Makefile you can do all the steps to make the program yourself -- it just automates the stops of compiling, linking, striping etc. (yes -- zap2 the utmp/last/who/w login hide hack tool from the 1992 wayback machine =)