Jim Davis wrote:
There's a review just now on Slashdot of a book that covers autoconf and friends -- it sounds like it would cover at least some of what you're after. There's an older O'Reilly book on Make that might be helpful too.
Um, wait, how long?! Right, 14 years ago, I was *really* heavily working on makefiles, and the O'Reilly book is indispensable. Also, to the best of my knowledge, and I have looked at current makefiles, it's still standard, so I'd strongly recommend it.
mark