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== Timoteo Ponce's blog ==
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Ant and Maven, a brief comparison

programming configuration ant build maven software engineering
I've been working for the last three years and during this period of time the projects I've been involved with have the same discussion:

which build tool should I use?...and the most common answers were...Ant and Maven

You can check some statistics to see which one is going to rule the market, honestly I think Ant will never leave.



But I must say that there's a very important difference between Ant and Maven, Ant is task-oriented with the possibility of handling project-related configurations. And Maven is project-oriented with the possibility of handling task-related configurations.

Considering that, I have these questions that might help you to decide between the right tool:

Maven


  1. Do you need to keep standard project structures?
  2. Do you want to avoid manual tasks/steps?
  3. Do your projects have dependencies to another projects/libraries/frameworks?
  4. Do you have a fairly good Internet connection?
  5. Do you like to follow the Convention over configuration way?
Ant


  1. Do your projects are very different one from another?
  2. Do your projects have very different structures?
  3. Do you customize your projects so they behave in a very specific way?
  4. Do you already have a tight workspace structure that doesn't fit in the Maven world?
  5. Do you need to have full control over what your projects do?
Some of these questions might be incorrect, but those are the ones coming to my head right now, so feel free to use them or not.