What do you use for a complex build process? [closed]

Answer 1

Except the Ant you mentioned and the scarry make/autotools, the mainstream tools are:

• SCons
• Jam
• CMake
• Maven

I use SCons, because it is python based, well-funded and elegant. Jam seems to be the most pragmatic one. I don't know too much about CMake. Maven may be the choice for you as it is Java centric and more high level than Ant.

More you can find at wikipedia: List of built tools

Answer 2

If you pursue Maven, then you will have two problems: a complex build and learning the f@*#ing "magic" of Maven. Maven just makes the problem worse because it is obtuse and overly-complicated.

I inherited a legacy Maven 1.x build at a large Fortune 500 company. I used Maven 2.x by choice on many other projects in recent years. I evaluated Maestro, in hopes that it might make Maven tractable. My conclusion, like many other peoples' (check the 'net), is that Maven is a big step in the wrong direction. It definitely is not an improvement over Ant.

I have used Ant for MANY years, including writing a large open-source library of Ant helper scripts. I have also extensively used its .NET cousin nAnt. However, Ant has two major failings. One, XML is simply not the right place to be doing build tasks. Two, Ant and XML do not scale well to large, complex builds. In fact, I have written a lot here at SO about my experiences in that arena (and with Maven).

Industry leaders have concluded that a build is just another application, and should be approached using general application tools. However, since it involves system-level and cross-platform functionality, most development languages/platforms are not properly suited (which includes Java, and therefore Ant and Maven). That also excludes .NET.

I spent two years looking for an alternative, and I found it: Python. It has the right combination of system-level access, cross-platform portability, simplicity, readability, power, robustness, and maturity. SCons, buildbot, setuptools/easyinstall, and base Python are my current target platform for the build process. When necessary, integration with Ant, Maven, and any other such tool is easy. Meanwhile, I can use these tools for the core of any build on any platform with any source language. No more roadblocks, no more crazy complexity, no more supposedly-helpful "declarative" scripting, no more black-box f@*#ing "magic".

If you can't switch to Python, then try Ant + Ivy (at apache.org). It gives you Maven's cool repository without most of Maven's evils. That is what I am doing as well, where necessary and suitable.

Best wishes.

Answer 3

Also take a look at

• Gant
• Gradle

While more general purpose build systems like SCons are very powerful, the Java support is somewhat limited in comparison to systems specially tailored to build Java projects.

Answer 4

Maven is really good choice to do large builds...in the majority of the cases where it doesn't work is very simple. The people misunderstand the concepts of Maven. If your are working with the "maven way" you will end up with smaller modules which gives you a better architecture in your software. On the other hand things like Hudson will support you in reducing build times by using Maven, cause Hudson supports to build only changed modules which is not supported by any other build tool. The problem with Maven is to learn and understand the concepts of Maven for example the structure of a project(folders etc.) or only a single artifact etc. The build-cycle will support you in different areas: compiling, packaging, deployment and release which is not supported by other tools (only if you implement it by hand...I've wrote many large Ant scripts to reach this)...Other problem like changes over the time are caused by ignoring the best practice and pin pointing versions which are used.

Answer 5

I use Ant, taking advantage of its macro feature. If you layout your project in a consistent mannner, you can eliminate a lot of the duplication by writing macros.

I've been building up an Antlib containing macros and custom tasks that I reuse across multiple projects.

Alternatively, some people swear by Maven. Other people just swear about Maven.

Answer 6

Try FinalBuilder

It provides a GUI interface to whatever your build process may be and has a native action for almost everything, plus an action studio where you can create your own.

With a bit of planning can be very streamlined.