Not your parent commenter. I worked both with CMake/autotools and Java build tools (not esbuild specifically) and the point (which I agree with) is - yes - C/C++ build tools are complicated, but once you set it up it just runs most of the time without any problem. With things like webpack you are always one upgrade away from things breaking down in spectacular fashion, and the troubleshooting involves hunting github issues, blogs, and sometimes looking through the source code to figure out why this combination of npm package versions gives you the trouble.
Somebody once described configuring fvwm2 (which is still my WM of choice, and indeed was theirs at the time of writing) as "like training a brain damaged hyena."
The thing is, as the same somebody noted, that then it stays trained.
To quote from upthread, "the same insane for 30 years" is in and of itself a huge feature that makes up for quite a lot of insane.
