Undefined local variable or method `make' when installing therubyracer on MacOS - ruby-on-rails

Question

I've been developing on this project for about a year now, but about a month ago I ran into an issue where I had a gem installed that was incompatible with my version of ruby (using rbenv; 2.3.1). I blew up the directory, uninstalled all of my gems, uninstalled rbenv, then installed rbenv and ruby. My fellow developers haven't had any problem getting the project setup, but when I run bundle install, my install always seems to fail on therubyracer 0.12.3 with the following error:
Fetching therubyracer 0.12.3
Installing therubyracer 0.12.3 with native extensions
Gem::Ext::BuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
current directory: /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/therubyracer-
0.12.3/ext/v8
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/ruby -r ./siteconf20191211-2125-b9wazv.rb extconf.rb
checking for main() in -lpthread... yes
checking for main() in -lobjc... yes
creating Makefile
To see why this extension failed to compile, please check the mkmf.log which can be found here:
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/extensions/x86_64-darwin-18/2.3.0-
static/therubyracer-0.12.3/mkmf.log
current directory: /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/therubyracer-
0.12.3/ext/v8
make "DESTDIR=" clean
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/make-0.3.1/bin/make:4:in `<top
(required)>': undefined local variable or method `make' for main:Object (NameError)
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `load'
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `<main>'
current directory: /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/therubyracer-
0.12.3/ext/v8
make "DESTDIR="
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/make-0.3.1/bin/make:4:in `<top
(required)>': undefined local variable or method `make' for main:Object (NameError)
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `load'
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `<main>'
make failed, exit code 1
Gem files will remain installed in
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/therubyracer-0.12.3 for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/extensions/x86_64-darwin-
18/2.3.0-static/therubyracer-0.12.3/gem_make.out
An error occurred while installing therubyracer (0.12.3), and Bundler cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install therubyracer -v '0.12.3'` succeeds before bundling.
In Gemfile:
therubyracer
I can't seem to find this same error reproduced anywhere. Prior to the install, when I run which make I get:
developer.rhapsody.com git:(master) which make
/usr/bin/make
developer.rhapsody.com git:(master) make --version
GNU Make 3.81
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
This program built for i386-apple-darwin11.3.0
However, after I try to run gem install therubyracer -v '0.12.3', when I run which make I get
developer.rhapsody.com git:(master) which make
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/shims/make
developer.rhapsody.com git:(master) make --version
/Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/make-0.3.1/bin/make:4:in `<top
(required)>': undefined local variable or method `make' for main:Object (NameError)
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `load'
from /Users/deaster/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/make:23:in `<main>'
I've blown up this project and rbenv several times in order to get this working but I can't get past this step. My team members never run into this error so they're having a hard time helping me get setup. I understand that something is wrong with the make gem, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The make gem has nothing to do with the GNU make program.
A gem that shortcuts typing out forms and tables for SQL users.
Assuming your model is named ModelName, just type
Make.form.model("ModelName").now! in your controller and it will
return an html-safe form based on your column names for creating a new
record in your view. In addition, you can type
Make.table.model("ModelName").now! to automatically generate a table.
- https://rubygems.org/gems/make
Its just a really badly named gem of questionable quality.
Whats going on here is that you ran gem install make (or it was included in the Gemfile) and now the shim generated by RBenv is shadowing GNU make on your system. What I don't understand is how the gems authors could be so clueless and not see that this would be a HUGE problem.
Running $ gem uninstall make should fix the problem. Also ensure that its not in your Gemfile.

Answer 2

Fortunately, I was able to get this working.
Unfortunately I'm not sure what fixed the issue. I didn't make any more changes to the project or environment between getting the bundle install errors and then finally being successful. The only thing that happened was my VSCode ran into some unrelated issue and crashed my computer. When I booted back up, bundle install was successful and I was able to run the project. I'm not sure what that's indicative of, but I'm still looking for more insight in case I run into this in the future.