If you're hitting this error when trying to make a command, it could be because there is a directory with the same name as your command in the directory of the Makefile.1
make: target is up to date.
If you, for instance, have a Makefile with the following command.
talk:
@echo "Hello! This works."
You can make talk and the Terminal or console will print Hello! This works..
If I were to create a talk folder within the same directory, i.e., mkdir talk and execute the make talk command again, I'd get the following error.
make: `talk' is up to date.
I learned this from a colleague at work today. I've hit this error many times, and it wasn't until I asked a question on a code review that I learned about this. ↩