Recursive/Nestable build system?

Question

Are there any existing build systems with the following criteria?

• Nestable/Recursive. I.e. there is no "top" level build file like in CMake or (non-recursive) make or just about every other build system.
• In-source builds. This is required for a build system to be cleanly nestable/recursive.
• Automatic dependency scanning for many languages
• Configuration files with declarative rather than imperative syntax
• Configuration file Syntax supports adding arbitrary custom build rules
• No IDE project generation bloat
• No showstoppers for cross-platform implementation
• Hash based change detection (or at least ~something) better than timestamps
• Free software

Basically, I want something that is up to the task of managing software build dependencies system-wide, but is still minimalist and efficient. I want a spiritual successor to make that is adoptable by a majority of the open-source world. What comes the closest?

Answer 1

Tup looks interesting...

http://gittup.org/tup/

and djb redo:

https://github.com/apenwarr/redo/

and shake:

http://hackage.haskell.org/package/shake

Answer 2

The ninja infrastructure looks interesting. It isn't a standalone build system, but maybe it will catalyze someone into writing a very elegant front-end. And perhaps CMake supporting it as a back-end will speed it's adoption.

http://martine.github.com/ninja/

Answer 3

Makepp comes close, and I have used it. For some reason it doesn't have much traction, though... Potential downsides:

• Implemented in perl rather than a systems programming language, so fewer devs interested in hacking on it?
• Not in apt, so harder to take seriously
• Inherits syntax from Make; doesn't really enforce ONE correct way of doing things
• Slow builds
• Subdirectories don't inherit information from parents