Apache Ant For Mac

Apache Ant (short for Another Neat Tool) is an open source and command line based development utility designed to boost your software building workflow.

The Apache Ant program does that by helping you design the building process using an XML based build configuration file.

This type of configuration is beneficial to the Java development process because it allows the developer to prepare the build process in stages and, thus, to make sure that each separate task is performed flawlessly.

As an added bonus, Apache Ant can also be used to automate the building process for apps written in C or C++, and, if needed, to describe and run any kind of install process that can be outlined as a concise series of tasks and targets.

Apache Ant was created while James Duncan Davidson was developing the Tomcat web server, and it was designed from the get-go as a helper tool to help him finalize the project using a simpler tool than make.

Moreover, upon in completion and after its huge potential was recognized, Apache Ant was released as a standalone Java app building tool, becoming the most used such utility in Java projects worldwide.

Unfortunately, in the last few years, developers have discovered that Apache Ant does have its limitations and, because the list of cons grows with each day passing day, the developer community behind Apache Ant as decreased.

On the whole, Apache Ant is a rugged and powerful build automation tool, designed to make it a lot easier for Java, C and C++ developers to build projects and automate various development processes using a build.xml configuration file.