Nope, you aren’t getting one here. I’ve argued Ant over Maven dozens of times in my life. Most recently, last night. 🙂 But, I’m not gonna start the argument again.
That said, my friend Pete has a post on his blog trying to pull me offsides again. He was the cause, last night over a few beers after our monthly Java user group meeting, of my most recent, and last, argument over Ant or Maven.
It’s just not worth the fight. I personally love Ant. It’s crazy-flexible. It can do anything. It can do anything, the way I want it done. It doesn’t force me to do things the way I don’t want to. Ant is easy to use. There is no learning curve.
Maven makes my head hurt. To get a team of developers up to speed on Maven is miserable. Ask Pete on his blog about the time he tried to push Maven on a team last year at MMA. It was ugly. Maven is a technology that makes you change everything you do. Nothing about it feels natural. It actually hurts to use Maven.
That said, I wish I was using Maven today. 😉 Kill me for saying that. It’s a love – hate with Maven. I’m at a new company and our standard tool is Ant. I just left Countrywide where they use Maven. I was forced to learn it and use it. I hated it…. Now, I miss it. 🙁
Pete, I hate you. 🙂