If the makefile includes a dummy target that does nothing at all --something I include in my Makefiles, as it's very useful for debugging the Makefiles themselves--, you should run that target to ...

It depends on what you mean by "recursive makefiles". I haven't studied them in detail but it appears that the CMake-generated makefiles have one makefile per high-level target (program, library, etc.

Makefiles are a fundamental tool that every embedded software developer needs to understand. Even if you use an Eclipse-based IDE, behind the scenes, a makefile is generated to build your objects ...