@cnx i think my problem with cmake is that it's so opaque to me.
if there is a make rule downloading stuff, i can understand what is happening and where things are going to. same for most "build.sh" like things.
with cmake there are dozens of variants of "downloading stuff from github™️", but i regularly fail to find out where things are saved/extracted to, what is downloaded, etc. all is hidden in complex cascades of rules n stuff. not fun.
cmake might be fine in principle but it does seem to invite people to do these things.