1. A Perl replacement for Make Excerpted from the README file: Cons is a system for constructing, primarily, software, but is quite different from previous software construction systems. Cons was designed from the ground up to deal easily with the construction of software spread over multiple source directories. Cons makes it easy to create build scripts that are simple, understandable and maintainable. Cons ensures that complex software is easily and accurately reproducible. Cons uses a number of techniques to accomplish all of this. Construction scripts are just Perl scripts, making them both easy to comprehend and very flexible. Global scoping of variables is replaced with an import/export mechanism for sharing information between scripts, significantly improving the readability and maintainability of each script. Construction environments are introduced: these are Perl objects that capture the information required for controlling the build process. Multiple environments are used when different semantics are required for generating products in the build tree. Cons implements automatic dependency analysis and uses this to globally sequence the entire build. Variant builds are easily produced from a single source tree. Intelligent build subsetting is possible, when working on localized changes. Overrides can be setup to easily override build instructions without modifying any scripts. MD5 cryptographic signatures are associated with derived files, and are used to accurately determine whether a given file needs to be rebuilt. From Debian 3.0r0 APT