CheckInstall VS SCons

Checkinstall to create deb or rpm package out of source installs which you can easily remove with your package manager again. (But this only keeps track of the installed files, doesn't do any dependency tracking). Source: over 2 years ago

There is also checkinstall which you run instead of make install. It creates a (simple) RPM package for you. You can remove that package with your package manager later on for easy uninstallation. Source: almost 3 years ago

Checkinstall is a rather popular way of dealing with self compiled packages. Source: about 3 years ago

The most comprehensive make alternative in python I've seen is Scons (https://scons.org/) It would be worth to see how they tackles some of the challenges you're looking into. Blurb from the website: SCons is an Open Source software construction tool. Think of SCons as an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to autoconf/automake and compiler caches... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago

Https://scons.org/ It has cache facility to speed up re-builds. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago

SCons never got popular enough to escape the niches it grew up in. Source: 10 months ago

I literally do almost this exact thing with the game im working on. Situation is: im the programmer, working with an artist who cant code (and im not going to make them edit json on an ipad lmao) so I have a google drive spreadsheet where they put metadata for the items they make. I have a script that uses rclone to copy this down as a csv, along with the image assets. Then I wrote a python extension for scons... Source: about 1 year ago

It's a build tool, like cmake. https://scons.org/ you have to install it. Source: about 1 year ago