An under noticed ninja feature I adore, which was implemented relatively recently, is the ability to configure how its build progress is printed. In my fish config, I have the `NINJA_STATUS` envvar:

    set -x NINJA_STATUS "STEP: %f/%t  
    [%p / %P] 
    [%w + %W]
    "

Which prints the time elapsed and projected in a readable multi-line format.