Customer Reviews

Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is exactly what it's title says: a *guide* to using Apache Ant, particularly for Java development. Note, though, that it is *not* a *reference*. It does not describe each Ant task in detail, nor does it document all the allowable Ant XML elements.

That's why I was disappointed with this book, and only gave it three stars. O'Reilly has an unfortunate habit of giving the same type of title to any of its books on a subject, regardless of their real content. Thus, "HTML and XHTML: The Definitive Guide" is a both a *guide* and a *reference*, and pretty much the only HTML book you need.

"Ant", on the other hand, really needs a companion reference for more experienced Ant users. Anyone who uses Ant soon realizes that the online documentation is less than stellar.

This book is a necessary starting point for Ant; now we need more! Ant, after all, is worth documenting, since it's *much* better than any alternative out there.

If you've never used Ant before, this is the book for you. It covers basic Ant concepts and enough of Ant usage so that you know where to look when you need more help. When you're done with this book you'll know how to set up basic builds, run unit tests and integrate with various environments such as Eclipse.

That said, I find the book frustrating because of its guide nature. Nothing in the book is laid out in a way that makes it easy to use as a reference. Even when you go to a chapter on a particular topic, the information you need quickly is presented in the right form. Now that I'm familiar with Ant I find using online references adequate for just about everything.

I have the first edition, which is more of a "how to use ant" book. The second edition is a "how to make ant useful" book. In that way, the second edition is completely different from the first. The chapters are "task" oriented as opposed to descriptions of Ant APIs. For example, "Deploying Builds" covers various Ant tasks and properties that will help you put together an Ant build.xml to deploy a build. An easy way to see if the book will work for you is to check the chapter headings.

Well written and pretty comprehensive - whether you're already comfortable with ant or new to ant, this is definately a great book to pick up.

This book provides a good enough introduction to Ant, but it only takes you to the point of knowing how to use Ant and not the point of knowing how to use ant on a project of any size. As an introduction it works well. You learn how to get up and running with Ant very early on in the book, and you learn all of the key tasks rather quickly as well. Everything is explained clearly, and it seems reasonably organized. What it lacks is really any explanation of various best practices for using ant, whether on a small program or a large one. For a book of this size, I was surprised at the absence of this info and ultimately I felt that it was only a bit more useful than the free online docs for ant.

In the Java world, Ant is perhaps the most popular program for building applications. If you came to Java from a C/C++/unix background, as most of us did, then you've used make. Which can certainly still be used for Java apps. But the book shows how Ant has carried the idea further.

Notably in its use of XML files for control. This lets Ant key off the tremendous expressive flexibility of XML. So useful is the idea that about half the book seems to cite XML examples.

The book also goes into integration of Ant with other utilities. Like CVS depots for version control. And for testing builds in an automated manner, Ant can easily work with JUnit. It may well be that the integration explanations are the most useful parts of the book, for they go well beyond simple, standalone usages of Ant.

I repeat: Buy this book. End of review.
Just kidding. About the latter, not the former. Why should you buy this book? Well, to be brutally honest, the online documentation sucks. I'm sorry, but it does. Look, I love and appreciate everything the Apache Jakarta Project gives us - for free! - but all of their projects have one thing in common: a dearth of documentation. I can understand the reason for this - programming is more fun than writing doc. But I don't agree with it. Especially when one frequently wastes hours on even the simplest of tasks due to incomplete or inaccurate documentation. In Ant's case I found direct contradictory information between the online documentation and comments in the sample build files - which we all use to get started. And it wasn't about some minor, deeply buried nuance; it was a major, in-your-face, important point. (Sorry, I can't remember exactly what it was. But I do remember just shaking my head in disbelief - it was that major and that bad.)
Ant has evolved into a complex tool. The sample build files are nice, but neither they nor the online doc *explain* how things work, which means you really don't have a good gut feeling about what you are doing when it comes time to expand their functionality.
Enter this book. It is clear, comprehensive and well-written. But here is what I really like about it: You need only read the first few chapters to get the overall gist of how Ant works, then you can go directly to subsequent chapters only if and when you need specific information, for example, getting source code from CVS, executing external programs, integrating with Eclpse, etc. This is a refreshing (and needed) change in today's world of 900+ page books that only make you realize that there is waaay too much information for you to absorb on a subject - especially since you are no doubt already overworked, overstressed and behind schedule.

They removed this really nice reference section in this (2nd) edition. That reference section is what really got me going in ant. I suppose the information is in the ant documentation, but I liked having it in the book.

Overall, the book is still ok.

I read this book to learn how to read existing Ant scripts, but I'm much disappointed at the many failed explanations of Ant basic concepts. For example, the description of paths and patternset left much to be desired. I HAD to consult another Ant book!!

Web research on Ant revealed a lot of explanations, but they were very hard to understand. And I didn't want to waste time scratching my head. This book explained what Ant is and how it works in an approachable way without insulting my intelligence. The author obviously has a lot of experience in Ant and many of the other technologies it interacts with. While other comments have pointed out that it's not a reference, I can easily get those other details on the internet. This book got me up and running with Ant quickly and painlessly. It contained useful examples that actually worked when I tried to follow them.

Apache Ant is the primary build tool for Java projects and this book is excellent introduction to it. Although the title is misleading - this is not really a definitive guide (its not really reference book for starters), it is well written and easily understood. If you work through this book from start to finish then I'm confident that you'll come out the other end as an Ant expert.