aesthetics for defining makes versus sub-makes

[Robert P. J. Day]

  a question regarding design -- i have a sizable, recursive project in 
which i define a target at pretty much every level, "package", which 
represents bundling everything in this directory and below into a package 
for distribution.

  ideally, any directory at any level can be asked to "package" itself 
and, since this works recursively, each directory then has to consider two 
possibilities:

1) it's the top level directory for the "package" target, which means it 
has to do extra work to, say, set up the initial package before content 
starts to be added by itself and its subdirectories, or

2) it's a sub-directory, which means it realizes that it just has to *add* 
content to a package already under construction.

  one solution, that i'm using now, is to define two targets for each 
makefile -- package and subpackage -- with obvious semantics.

  the other solution is to check MAKELEVEL and change the packaging based 
on that, of course.

  do people have strong opinions on this either way?  is one approach 
aesthetically better than the other?

rday