in reply to Perl - make tool

A couple of related PM nodes I remember:

PerlBuildSystem, on the CPAN, is under active development and worth a look.

Internal DSLs like rake suffer from being limited to valid syntax of the host language only; that is, you can't invent new syntax to better express your domain. In theory, Perl 6, due to its macro capability, should prove a superior language for implementing internal DSLs.