This is a remarkably stupid comment but not everything is "unreasonably effective". Mathematics was noted as unreasonably effective for modeling the universe because most areas of mathematics were not invented for the applications they meet... like discovering that your coffee maker doubles as an exceptionally good waffle maker.

Makefiles on the other hand, are not unreasonably effective in this sense. Makefiles are, in fact, _reasonably_ effective... like a coffee maker that brews coffee well.