make.bat

Unixy developers, do you use a Makefile as your project's builder and task runner? Have you ever told a Windows user to just install Cygwin or run your project in a virtual machine?

Did you feel bad about that? You should.

But no longer!

Now you can add this one little batch file to your project to let Windows developers experience the joy of make and your Makefile without needing a whole Unix environment. You won't even have to change your documentation!

This handy-dandy script is cleverly named "make.bat" so that when a Windows user types make in their CMD console it will run the batch file. It then checks whether an actual make command is available. If so, it will hand things over to that make. If not, it will download the GNU Make binaries and dependencies from Sourceforge into the root of the project. It even cleans up after itself!

And just like that, your Windows user has access to make and all of the wonderfully useful automation you've crafted in your Makefile.

Your Linux and OSX developers won't care, because their superior operating systems will just ignore that silly .bat file.

Just be sure to add make/ to your project's .gitignore. Oh, and you might want to test the Makefile on Windows since file paths are often janky in Redmond.