[eigengrau]

Interesting! So in that case one could defend the need for escaped whitespace. Still leaves automatic variables, I guess.

[mnarayan01]

Well it could be rewritten to use 0x1f (i.e. unit separator) to separate items. I mean it already has significant tabs. Though invariably people would be like "How is it acceptable for make to not support filenames which contain unit separators? It's 2020 guys, get with the program!"