What is build automation software (for example, Ant)?

Question

I see reference of ant a lot but I don\'t get exactly what its meant to do? from what i\'ve heard its supposed to compile your projects but can\'t i just do that by clicking Run

Answer 1

Ant is a build tool, akin to makefiles (albeit with a very different syntax in XML). If you're only using Eclipse it's fine to stick to that and you can always convert an Ant build file into an Eclipse project (Eclipse's launch configurations are then, if I remember correctly, the equivalent of Ant's build targets).

If you want to deploy the source code of the application and allow others to easily build or set it up, automating that using Ant is probably not a bad idea. But it's usually not a consistent experience for users or at least I haven't seen much consensus on what targets should be there and doing what so far.

Ant may also be used for regular automated builds (you wouldn't want to hit Run in Eclipse every night, right? :-))