intergrating external tools vs makefiles

Hi,

As said in my earlier message, I'm currently learning xproc.

As a journal manager I've implemented a single source publishing workflow using pandoc (word->markdown ; markdown -> jats xml), xslt (polishing the xml; xml->html) , and context (xml->pdf). Everything currently held together by a rather simplistic makefile. Now, I'm evaluating better options, and I'm wondering if and how I could use xproc for that or at least intergrate it into my workflow. I've already decided that a xproc pipeline will probably be better than my monoithic xslt cleanup script (which is getting bigger and less maintainable).

But should it be possible to use xproc pipelines instead of a makefile? Can it easily call external tools? And would that be easier and more flexible than the makefile approach? I've also thought about using python scripts or maybe a go cli tool, but I'm wondering if xproc would be a better choice.

Best,
Denis