What are the best practices for writing Ant scripts ?

Use Simple Targets

• Each target should do a single well defined job
• Targets that do multiple jobs should be split up into multiple targets with dependencies between them
• Targets that do too much make the build harder to maintain
• Library scripts need to allow targets to be overridden. This is easier when the targets perform a single job

Use Standard Targets

• It is easier for people to use a standard set of commands
• Developers can switch from one project to another and immediately understand how the build script works
• Standard targets can be easily overridden in a project build file

Use Properties for Configurability

• Properties should be defined for :
• Any piece of information that needs to be configured
• Any piece of information that might change
• Any piece of information that is used in more than one place
• Properties should be defined at the top of the build file or in a standalone properties file
• Properties explicitly define the configurable portion of the build
• You can provide a different version of this properties file for different :
  platforms / environments / operating systems / developers