Background about Ant

What is Ant?
===========

Basically, Ant is very similar to the "make" utility that is
familiar to anyone who has ever done C or C++ programming using a Makefile.

That is, it allows you to automate the process of recompiling only
the minimal parts of your project that _need_ to be recompiled, and then
deploying the finished product whereever it is supposed to go.

You may be used to doing:

  > make
  > make install

With Ant, the analogous thing you do is:

  > ant deploy

The Ant folks say:

  "Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of 
   like make, without make's wrinkles."

   (source: http://ant.apache.org/manual/intro.html)


Differences between Ant and Make
================================

My take on it:

(1) Based on XML

    The "make" utility has its own strange little language for writing
    Makefiles with its oddities of syntax (e.g. tabs not spaces, etc.)

    Ant uses XML.  (Granted, XML is also a strange little language,
    but at least it is one with a familiar syntax, and one that, once
    you learn it, is used in LOTS of different applications, not just
    in one.)

(2) Built in Java for Java

    Ant has built in rules for doing lots of cool things related to Java,
    and technologies associated with Java.

    Ant has over seventy built in "tasks" which all relate to Java
    development, such as compiling, building jar files, deploying,
    running unit tests, etc.


(3) Integrated with other software development technologies

    Ant is integrated into various Java "Integrated Development Environments" 
    (IDEs) including Eclipse, IDEA, NetBeans, jEdit, JBuilder, and others.
    (See: http://ant.apache.org/manual/ide.html )

    And, in addition to the built in tasks, there are "tasks" that have
    been added to Ant for both open source and proprietary technologies
    such as various source control systems, Microsoft .NET, and so forth.


You can also read what the Ant folks say about Ant here:
   http://ant.apache.org/manual/intro.html

Can Ant replace make entirely?  Will it?
========================================

Supposedly, you can also use Ant to automate your C and C++ tasks
as well, i.e. Ant could entirely replace "make".   Though I haven't looked
into this, I have no reason to doubt that it is true.

However, I'm skeptical---not about whether Ant _could_ replace make, but
about whether it _will_.

There is probably enough inertia behind "make" and "Makefiles" (and
related technologies such as autoconf, the system for "./configure"
scripts) that they are unlikely to disappear soon.  In the meantime,
computing professionals will probably have to be familiar with both.


Ant Trivia (these things would not be on an exam)
===========

According to the O'Reilly book "Ant: The Definitive Guide":

(1) Ant is an acronym for "Another Neat Tool"

(2) Version 2.0 of Ant is expected to be _not_ backwards compatible with
Versions 1.x, so a tool will be provided to convert 1.x build.xml files to
2.0 format.