By Jesse E. Tilly, Eric M. Burke
May 2002
Pages: 288
ISBN 10: 0-596-00184-3 |
ISBN 13: 9780596001841
(Average of 6 Customer Reviews)
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Ant is the premier build-management tool for Java environments. Ant is part of Jakarta, the Apache Software Foundation's open source Java project repository. Ant is written entirely in Java, and is platform independent. Using XML, a Java developer describes the modules involved in a build, and the dependencies between those modules. Ant then does the rest, compiling components as necessary in order to build the application.
Full Description
Ant is the premiere build management tool for use in Java environments. Unlike traditional build management tools such as GNU Make, Ant is itself written in Java, is platform independent, and interfaces well with the utilities in Sun's Java software development kit (SDK). In addition to being platform independent, Ant is also independent of the integrated development environment (IDE) being used. IDE independence is important for open source projects (or other projects) in which the various developers might use different IDEs. Using Ant, Java developers can:
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- Define build chunks, the results that they must produce, and the dependencies between them
- Automatically retrieve source code from source control systems such as PVCS
- Build applications by having Ant compile the necessary source files in the proper order
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, March 11 2004
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Submitted by .
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I had this book over 1 year. Ant is special tool for Java environments which helps me in my biz.. It is written entirely in Java. Its good book for me. I rate it 4 stars!
Emur
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, November 13 2002
Rating:
Submitted by T. T. Giang
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When it comes to open source technology, you’re on your own as soon as you download and install the product. The most challenging part has to be figuring out how to configure your new toy. There is always that infamous README file, but let’s face it, it does not get us as far as we would like to go. Lucky for all of us beginners to Ant, it is self-explanatory, and easy to work with. Not only that, but there are countless examples available on the web, and the book to get us started.
Reading “Ant, The Definitive Guide” by Jesse Tilly & Eric M. Burke, is like having one of them beside you. The book carefully walks you through the steps required to write your first buildfile. From there, more complex ideas and approaches are introduced to the entire build process. Naturally, one should be well adapted to the Unix/DOS command line before jumping into the book. Trying to do it any other way is not as obvious.
The authors build structure is straightforward. First, there is the standard directory structure of BIN/DOC/LIB, and so forth. This consistency with the rest of the industries makes learning the process that much easier. With changes constantly taking place in programming environments, having a buildfile to generate your executables and keeping your documentation up-to-date is quite nice. I started with the authors’ samples, and have modified them to fit my working environment. In doing so, I am keeping to the standards in used by the Java community, and I know that is a great plus down the road.
The book is well organized and very intuitive. For the starting Java programmer, this is a tool that will get you far. Don’t forget that documentation is key to good programming, and it will save you down the road when you have to figure out what’s going on with that line of code.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much involved in building an Ant file. Once you have the necessary components in place, it is a matter of renaming them for your next project. The book is short, and it covers enough to get you where you need to be. One half of the book is dedicated to various parameters that can be incorporated into your buildfile. This is handy, but for the beginners, it can be overwhelming. For the most part, you can obtain the instructions provided in the first half of the book by searching the web, but you won’t have the step-by-step guidance that is provided by Tilly and Burke.
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, November 09 2002
Rating:
Submitted by nigel thornberrie
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There is simply not much here that you can't get out of the
online docs. If you really want to get a book on ANT I highly
suggest "Java develeopment with ANT" by Manning, ISBN 1930110588
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, September 10 2002
Rating:
Submitted by Ivan Van Laningham
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I thought this book was a decent enough reference for Ant, and there's nothing else like it around, but, like the previous two reviewers, I thought the index left a great deal to be desired.
I'll go further: the index sucked, and there's no getting around it. Almost nothing is in there except for Ant tasks, which are easily locatable without the index--they are listed alphabetically in Chapter 7, Core Tasks.
I'd rather use this book than the online manual, but not by a large margin.
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, August 15 2002
Rating:
Submitted by phil walker
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This is the first O'reilly book I have ever purchased that I can't recommend. Although there probably is some good information somewhere in the book, the index is inadequate, and I don't have time to read the entire book each time I need to look something up
Definitely not a reference book ...
Ant: The Definitive Guide Review, July 02 2002
Rating:
Submitted by Thomas Steger
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This is not a comment about the contents of the book. It contains voluminous and detailed information. However, it is a real challenge to find the answer to a specific question. I suggest that any first-time reader use plenty of post-it tags, because you probably won't be able to find some interesting tidbit again in the index.
Try to find the "unless" attribute in the index. You can't. What about a treatment of platform differences. No mention in the index. I hoped to find the various system properties described. Nope.
How about reissuing this book soon with a better index?
Media reviews "This book is exactly what O'Reilly & Associates does best. Ant, a modular XML-based replacement for Make, is quickly becoming the standard way to build Java programs. Tilly and Burke describe how it works, how to drive it, and how to extend its functionality with Java plug-ins. Most of the details are in Ant's online documentation, but their explanations are definitely worth the price of the book. Oh, and their code fot is nice and readable, too."
--Gregory V. Wilson, "Dr. Dobb's Journal," June 2003
"a great book."--Don Denoncourt, Iseries News, Dec 2002
"A clear, example-driven exploration of the tools at hand...Tilly and Burke do a good job capturing the spirit of the tool. Their book follows O'Reilly's time-tested and market-proven simple-examples technique to illustrate how to use Ant for your projects. The chapters in the first half of the book outline how to use and extend Ant for your project. The strength of the book may be the way the authors casually include practical advice about the bugs and idiosyncracies of the tool."
--Peter Wayner, slashdot,org, June 14, 2002
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