Sometimes things in workflows are sending/retrieving data over a network. It may be turning on a light. It could be changing a database. Make has no way of recognizing those events unless you've tied them to your file system. Do you really want an extra file for every entry or table in a database? It becomes fragile and error prone. A real workflow system should use a database, and not the filesystem-as-database.
> Sometimes things in workflows are sending/retrieving data over a network. It may be turning on a light. It could be changing a database. Make has no way of recognizing those events
Why should Make violate basic software design rules and fundamental Unix principles? Do you want your build system to tweak lights? Setup a file interface and add it to your makefile. Do you want your build system to receive data through a network? Well, just go get it. Hell, the whole point of REST is to access data as a glorified file.
