Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5.1. Guide to technologies in this chapter. Java approaches are based on Ant or Maven. Groovy supplies
Ant tasks for compilation and executing scripts. Gant is used by Grails but will eventually be replaced by Gradle.
The
AntBuilder
class is useful and built into Gradle. There are two separate plugins available for Maven builds.
Groovy Grapes make it easy to deliver code (normally scripts) to a client without compiling it first. Ultimately,
though, the future belongs to Gradle.
5.2. The Java approach, part 1: Ant
Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool, based on the older “make” technology but without
many of its difficulties. The name Ant represents either “another neat tool” or a tool that
lifts far more than its own weight, depending on whom you ask. Ant build files are writ-
ten in XML, so they are inherently cross-platform, and because Java classes implement the
XML tasks, a single API suffices for all operating systems.
That's the good news. The (somewhat) bad news is that Ant is an extremely low-level API,
2
Yes, an Adventure (or Zork) reference. I just mean they're small, they're many, and they're easy to get lost in.
