On Fri, Dec 02, 2016 Greg Wooledge wrote: "For starters, make is *older* than bash, by over a decade. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_%28software%29 says that make originated at Bell Labs in April 1976. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29 says that the first "beta version of bash was released by Brian Fox in June 1989."
But, quoting the second reference, bash is "a free software replacement for the Bourne shell" and the Bourne shell dates to 1977. Quoting the second reference, "before Make's introduction in 1976, the Unix build system most commonly consisted of operating system dependent make and install shell scripts accompanying their program's source." So it is not that much different from what I said. People would have known what the shell was good for when make appeared but they did not try to hold on to the build market which they had at that time.
