Maven and Ant

'Build' is more of a process than a tool. Build tools have come a long way, writing custom bat/shell scripts is no longer acceptable. Ant became the defacto standard for java shops. Then came Maven, for a developer working on a single project, the build tool would not be a major concern. It is just another tool in the arsenal.

A good Ant script is configurable, readable, modular and extensible. Properties and semantically sound naming conventions are must for a good script. This is analogous to writing maintainable code and carries the same penalty, none of the above conventions are mandatory, implying that hastily written scripts can end up in production environment.

Maven strongly enforces the concept of life-cycles. Plugins are used to carry out tasks (similar to ant tasks). Archetypes define the xml structure. All of these make it a bit more difficult to deviate from standards. Maven rules over Ant when it comes to standardisation. Almost anyone can use a maven build file (pom), where as certain build.xml files have known to have caused nightmares.

So why isn't everything mavenized? Answer: simplicity. Almost every developer working on a project know the libraries & versions required. Unless you are building a library/framework, one can be certain about build invariants (libraries). So 75.23455623% [random number generated by a fickle brain :)] of the projects meant for end-user consumption are happy with a working ant script. They don't need to haggle over dependency resolution. These are guys who don't care if SCM/CI are built-in or whether a GUI exists for viewing the jar files.

To conclude the discussion, decide in which environment you would be working. If it is a environment with diverse projects that may use your code one day, go with Maven as it is more polite to advanced users. If you work on personal projects/college assigments/maverick prototypes, Ant fits your bill.