I debated whether to start namedropping build systems, but I decided it was going to be counter productive and devolve into a debate of the relative merits of the systems I'd picked out. In the end it depends heavily on the environment you're in what makes sense for your project.
No, really not. If you pick a build system at random it's probably better than make. If it's a big project it's worth taking 30 minutes to actually look at what's available and pick one.
