A good example of how make is needlessly repetitive is how I have been building makefile lines today:

I copy a command line that I pasted into the shell, e.g.

command < file1 -other_input file2 > file3

I paste it into my makefile, twice

command < file1 -other_input file2 > file3
command < file1 -other_input file2 > file3

and then edit

.PHONY: verb-to-run-command
verb-to-run-command: file3
file3: command file1 file2
        command < file1 -other_input file2 > file3