Sonntag, März 08, 2009

some new Java build tools

Reading an article about The future of Java build tools, I started to think what this means for me.

So far I needed only to modify build processes using Makefiles and perl scripts. Our "new" (4 years old) company project I'm involved, in uses ant for the complete build. Down the chain where my code (C++) is located, still Makefiles are used.

On Java projects at home, eclipse is doing all the work for me.

Some of the new build tools define the rules in a script language like Gradle in Groovy or Raven in Ruby. Looking deeper into one of this makes only sense for me in the case

  • we use one in a project

  • I know already the used script language

  • it becomes the successor of make and ant



This build tools are very new and only time will tell if the concept of defining the build rules in a script language will succeed. For me it makes more sense to use a declarative build rule description every one knows and add if needed scripts in a language also every one in the projects knows.

My conclusion is to look deeper into ant as we use it in the project at work. It might also get handy in my private Java projects with eclipse.

Some wikipedia links to start

  • Ant claims to be simpler to use as make

  • Ivy is a dependency manager for Ant

  • Maven claims to be simnpler to use as Ant

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