Apache Ant

Apache Ant (Another Neat Tool) provides you with a Java-developed tool to help you quickly and easily automate your processes regarding software building.
While fairly similar in concept with the Make utility, Apache Ant utilizes the XML (Extensible Markup Language) and it is best recommended for designing Java projects rather than any other type of applications, and Make uses its very own proprietary format.
Born in the days when James Duncan Davidson, was working to put together the popular Tomcat (Java-based web server), the Apache Ant was initially created as a tool to finish the project, a utility to build the application from directives included within a ‘build.xml’ file.
As a standalone application, Apache Ant was later released to the developer community back in 2000 and by 2002 it was the tool utilized in most of the Java-enabled applications. As a fact, these Java programs encase the trademark ‘build.xml’ file amongst their contents.
Although many proposals have emerged for a potential second version of the software, Apache Ant updates on a constant note, with an average of three new iterations per year. At this rate, they are bound to hit the second version of the software by 2016. Leaving the humorous part of the story aside, Apache Ant looks like has its days numbered.
The bottom line with Apache Ant is that its limitations keep it down and somehow off-course within the developer community, with less and less support and a dark, dying future pictured by all of these cons. Other than that, Apache Ant can still pack some punch when it comes to building open-source Java-based applications.