[doxcf434]

Is this not a simple Makefile?

https://github.com/apex/apex/blob/master/Makefile

[jhasse]

I wouldn't expect `make clean` to delete stuff it didn't create itself. This does though as it just executes `git clean -f`!

[Sean1708]

Arguably the simplest Makefile is not having any Makefile and just doing

  make <executable name>

The next step up would be a Makefile that is essentially just a set of sh scripts, like your example. But I think it's supposed to be implied that the blog is specifically talking about medium-sized C projects.