Java Development with Ant [Paperback]

Erik Hatcher (Author), Steve Loughran (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1930110588 | ISBN-13: 978-1930110588 | Publication Date: August 2002

Encompassing Java-centric software project best practices for designing and automating build, test, and deployment processes using ANT, this book is written for developers using Java in large software projects and those who have reached the limits of classic IDE development systems. Benefiting developers who apply extreme programming methodology to Java projects, this resource provides detailed coverage of ANT and explains how to use it in large projects and extend it when needed. In addition to using ANT for Java applications, it includes discussions of servlets and J2EE applications, which cover the majority of Java development projects.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great resource . . . learn how to integrate Ant into [a] personal set of best practices for software configuration management solutions." -- slashdot.org

"Erik and Steve give you the answers to questions you didn't even know you have." -- Ted Neward, .NET & Java author and instructor

"Required reading for all Java developers . . . You will only need one Ant book if you buy this one." -- About.com Java Guide

"This should be required reading for all Java developers." -- Denver Java Users Group

"[A] must read for everyone using Ant in the development/build/deploy process for Java applications." -- Werner Ramaeker's Weblog

"[This] is essential for anyone serious about actually shipping Java applications. I wish I could say I wrote it." -- Stuart Halloway, chief technical officer, DevelopMentor, and author, Component Development for the Java Platform

About the Author

Erik Hatcher, one of the original Lucene in Action authors, is a committer on the Ant, Lucene, and Tapestry open-source projects, and coauthor of Manning's award-winning Java Development with Ant.

Steve Loughran has been an active user and developer of Ant since the year 2000, a committer on the project since 2001, and a member of the Apache Software Foundation since 2004. He regularly lectures on the problems of big-system builds, distributed testing, and deployment. He is a research scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Bristol, UK.

Robinson is the author of a monthly on-line column at the Swing Connection and works as an engineer for WebScope, Inc.

Pavel Vorobiev has been a software developer for companies such as Right Works and Netfish Technologies where he was a senior software engineer and architect working on the design and development of procurement and B2Bi workflow software involving early-adopter XML standards, J2EE, and web services technologies. He was also a programmer analyst for Merrill Lynch. Pavel is the coauthor of JFC: Java Foundation Classes, Migrating from Java 1.0 to 1.1, The Java 1.1 Programmer's Reference, and The Official Netscape Java 1.1 Programming Book. He lives in San Leandro, California.

Sam Ruby is a prominent software developer who has made significant contributions to the many of the Apache Software Foundation's open source projects, and to the standardization of web feeds via his involvement with the Atom web feed standard and the popular Feed Validator web service.

He currently holds a Senior Technical Staff Member position in the Emerging Technologies Group of IBM. He resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930110588
• ISBN-13: 978-1930110588
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, broad coverage. Well researched. Easy to read., September 20, 2002

By 

David Mitchell "Consultant, educator" (Overland Park, KS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Java Development with Ant (Paperback)

This should be required reading for all Java developers. Java Development with Ant shows how to automate most of the drudgery involved with large Java projects. The authors included a lot of great examples and practical advice covering the essentials of Ant, building, testing, and running code.

Despite its size, the book is not full of endless code listings or mundane command references, which are available for Ant elsewhere anyway. They do include a brief (60 page) appendix which is useful when you are reading away from your computer.

The first two chapters are great for a new Ant user. I had used other people's build files before reading this book, but had never created my own before. The first chapter told me want Ant is and the second helped me create my first build file.

The third chapter explains the nuts and bolts of Ant datatypes and properties. The third chapter was a little too dense for my first read (or maybe I was too dense for it). No matter, I read it and figured I would refer back later.

The next four chapters teach you how to integrate jUnit, run programs using Ant, package a JAR (or WAR, or EAR), and deploy it. Chapter 8 recaps everything from the first section with a reasonable sample project. Large enough to be real, small enough to understand.

Part 2 is titled Applying Ant and includes many interesting chapters. Each chapter is like an article about a particular application of Ant such as XDoclet, XML, EJBs, etc. These are great reads and work independently of one another, so you can skip around to what you are interested in.

Part 3 talks about Extending Ant by writing tasks, mappers, and filters. Here again, they avoid printing out the API by focusing on practical examples.

The appendices have good info as well. The installation section is nice and the XML primer might be helpful for a newbie. Appendix C gives a tour of a number of IDEs and their Ant integration.

Appendix D is a real gem. "The Elements of Ant Style" is a brief set of guidelines for the buildfile author. Not only does it provide recommendations, they even followed my favorite maxim from Strunk & White, "Omit needless words." The whole appendix is only 16 pages.

Great stuff; highly recommended.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It is more about Ant than about what you can do with it..., July 23, 2003

By 

Riccardo Audano (Chiavari, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Java Development with Ant (Paperback)

Very good programmers are often terrible authors.. as you will find out from both this book and the manning book on Struts. Having been written by Ant contributors and "junkies" it tends to be more of an "ant treatise" than a tutorial on how to use
it in the most common and useful situations. So buy it if you want a long and wordy description of of ant and all its quirks,
but you want lots of clean, short, to-the-point, easy to follow
examples you might get disappointed here. Also, be aware that this book is 500 pages long, and if learning routine web and business programming can be boring, wading through 500 pages about how to compile package deploy and test that code is boring beyond belief!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my top 5 Java books, January 3, 2006

By 

Frank J. Kelly "Java Architect" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Java Development with Ant (Paperback)

Ant is a great tool that lets you pretty much automate any process- whether Java build-related or not. This book is then THE one-and-only book to buy - it serves as a tutorial AND a reference. The author's breadth of knowledge on Ant is amazing and the examples he presents are wonderful.

The key areas I found the book very helpful on were
1) JUnit integration & report creation (using XDoclet /JUnitReport)
2) Deployment-related activities
3) Breaking out commonly used Ant targets for reuse

But there is so much more - my edition has been well thumbed
and has many yellow post-it notes for quick lookup.

Based on what I've learned in this book I've been able to quickly and easily integrate the following components into my build process
1) Checkstyle (syntax checker)
2) PMD ("bad practice" checker)
3) JUnit & Clover (code coverage)
4) JDepend (Class interdependcy reporting)
5) Javadoc
6) An automated nightly build of the code and deployment to WebSphere

I can't say enough about this book - but I would be lost without it and thus am loathe to lend it. If you use Ant or WANT to use Ant then buy this book.