Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, but without Make’s wrinkles.

Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, and others? Because all those tools have limitations that Ant’s original author couldn’t live with when developing software across multiple platforms. Make-like tools are inherently shell-based — they evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute commands not unlike what you would issue in a shell. This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing any program for the OS that you are working on. However, this also means that you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type such as Unix, that you are working on.

Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for any time has run into the dreaded tab problem. “Is my command not executing because I have a space in front of my tab!!!” said the original author of Ant way too many times. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, but still have yet another format to use and remember.

Ant is different. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based commands, Ant is extended using Java classes. Instead of writing shell commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements a particular Task interface.

Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent by being able to construct a shell command such as `find . -name foo -exec rm {}`, but it gives you the ability to be cross platform — to work anywhere and everywhere. And hey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has an task that allows different commands to be executed based on the OS that it is executing on.

URL: http://ant.apache.org/
Licence: Apache License

Continuum is a continous integration server for building Java based projects. It supports a wide range of projects:

• Maven 1
• Maven 2
• Ant
• Shell scripts

URL: http://maven.apache.org/continuum/index.html
Licence: Apache License

Antmod is a Java and Ant based tool for:

1. Build Management:

* Speed-up java development with Antmod’s plugins [...]
* Share build files across projects [...]

2. Release Management:

* Describe a project using release descriptors [...]
* Standardize versioning across projects [...]
* Modularize your software development process [...]

3. Repository Management:

* Manage your CVS or Subversion repository [...]

Antmod’s repository management, release descriptors, working with modules, Ant buildfiles and Ant build plugins make it a powerful and complete out-of-the-box solution for any software development project, especially those based on Java.

URL: http://antmod.org/
Licence: Common Public License

CruiseControl is a framework for a continuous build process. It includes, but is not limited to, plugins for email notification, Ant, and various source control tools. A web interface is provided to view the details of the current and previous builds.

CruiseControl is distributed under a BSD-style license and is free for use. CruiseControl adheres to an open source model and therefore makes the source code freely available.

CruiseControl is maintained and developed by a group of dedicated volunteers.

URL:http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/
Licence: BSD License

CPMake is a make utility written in Java to make anything (C, C++, Java, C#, XSL …) CPMake works similar to GNU make in that is uses rules and dependencies to build a project. CPMake uses Java scripting languages (BeanShell, Rhino, Jython and Groovy) for the build files to give increased flexability and the ability to customize the make file to your project.

CPMake Benefits:

Make files work on any platform that supports Java.
CPMake has built in dependency tracking for C/C++ and Java projects.
Build files have access to all of the Java classes.
Easy to debug build files.
Multi threaded processing of build file.
Cross platform paths. Use ” or ‘/’ Java doesn’t care.

URL: http://www.cpmake.org/
Licence: GPL

Invicta is an open-source build management tool. Using simple project definition files, it generates powerful build scripts (Apache ANT’s), while hiding their complexity. Furthermore, Invicta is a modular framework that allows advanced developers add their own customized types of components, which means writing once ANT code that can later be used by all the developers in their project or company simply by specifying the new type name.

URL: http://invicta.sourceforge.net/
Licence: LGPL

GenJar is a specialized Ant task that builds jar files based on class dependencies rather than simply the contents of a directory.

GenJar was originally created by John W. Kohler (jake at riggshill.com).

Work is underway on GenJar2. GenJar2 will be a functional replacement of GenJar, but build file syntax will change. Some of the features of GenJar2 include:

• Syntax consistent with Ant’s jar task
• Replacement of GenJar’s with Ant’s
• Replacement of GenJar’s with with Ant’s
• BCEL for class dependency checking

The original GenJar branch will be maintained for as long as there is demand.

URL: http://genjar.sourceforge.net/
Licence: Apache License