Updated: Since I’ve noticed quite a few Google hits on this entry, I thought I’d post some more information.

I’ve finally figured out what Maven is all about. (No one seems to say it outright.) This enlightenment comes after writing a previous post

The basic difference is fundamental: where Ant allows you to build your own targets to do anything you wish, Maven takes your description of your project (directory structure, etc) and uses standard, pre-written, tasks (goals in Maven-speak) to achieve the usual build needs.

Maven has a bunch of built-in plugins and goals. You can write your own using Jelly.

I’ll be updating this post with some more info shortly. (Ok, so I guess it took a while. My conclusion seems to be staying with Ant, particularly with the addition of new extensions.)

Some relatively clean information is available here