Soon after its launch, Ant succeeded in taking the Java world by storm, becoming the most widely used tool for building applications in Java environments. Like most popular technologies, Ant quickly went through a series of early revision cycles. With each new version, more functionality was added, and more complexity was introduced. Ant evolved from a simple-to-learn build tool into a full-fledged testing and deployment environment.

"Ant: The Definitive Guide" has been reworked, revised and expanded upon to reflect this evolution. It documents the new ways that Ant is being applied, as well as the array of optional tasks that Ant supports. In fact, this new second edition covers everything about this extraordinary build management tool from downloading and installing, to using Ant to test code. Here are just of a few of the features you'll find detailed in this comprehensive, must-have guide:

Developing conditional builds, and handling error conditions

Automatically retrieving source code from version control systems

Using Ant with XML files

Using Ant with JavaServer Pages to build Web applications

Using Ant with Enterprise JavaBeans to build enterprise applications

Far exceeding its predecessor in terms of information and detail, "Ant: The Definitive Guide," 2nd Edition is a must-have for Java developers unfamiliar with the latest advancements in Ant technology. With this book at your side, you'll soon be up to speed on the premiere tool for cross-platform development.

Author Steve Holzner is an award-winning author who s been writing about Java topics since the language first appeared; his books have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide.

Java programmers know how finicky Java can be to work with. An omitted semi-colon or the slightest typo will cause the Java command-line compiler to spew pages of annoying error messages across your screen. And it doesn't fix them--that's up to you: fix them, compile again, and hope that nothing goes wrong this time.

Eclipse, the popular Java integrated development environment (IDE) provides an elegant and powerful remedy for this common, frustrating scenario. It doesn't just catch your errors before you compile, it also suggests solutions. All you need to do is point and click. And it's free--what could be better? Still, if you're like most programmers, mastering a new technology--no matter how productive it will make you in the long run--is going to take a chunk out of your productivity now. You want to get up to speed quickly without sacrificing efficiency.

O'Reilly's new guide to the technology, "Eclipse," provides exactly what you're looking for: a fast-track approach to mastery of Eclipse. This insightful, hands-on book delivers clear and concise coverage, with no fluff, that gets down to business immediately. The book is tightly focused, covering all aspects of Eclipse: the menus, preferences, views, perspectives, editors, team and debugging techniques, and how they're used every day by thousands of developers. Development of practical skills is emphasized with dozens of examples presented throughout the book.

From cover-to-cover, the book is pure Eclipse, covering hundreds of techniques beginning with the most basic Java development through creating your own plug-in editors for the Eclipse environment. Some of the topics you'll learn about include:

Using Eclipseto develop Java code

Testing and debugging

Working in teams using CVS

Building Eclipse projects using Ant

The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT)

Web development

Developing Struts applications with Eclipse

From basics to advanced topics, "Eclipse" takes you through the fundamentals of Eclipse and more. You may be an Eclipse novice when you pick up the book, but you'll be a pro by the time you've finished.

You've probably heard the buzz about Eclipse, the powerful open source platform that gives Java developers a new way to approach development projects. It's like a shiny new car--no longer content to just admire Eclipse, you're now itching to get in and drive.

Eclipse is to Java developers what Visual Studio is to .NET developers--it's an integrated development environment (IDE) that combines a code editor, compiler, debugger, text editor, graphical user interface (GUI) builder, and other components into a single, user-friendly application. It provides a solid foundation that enables Java developers to construct and run integrated software-development tools for web development, application design, modeling, performance, testing, and much more.

As with any extensive programming tool, however, there's a lot to learn. And there s no better guy than well-known Java expert Steve Holzner to teach you. An award-winning and best-selling author who has been writing about Java topics since the language first appeared, Holzner delivers just the kind of targeted, practical, everyday knowledge you need to hone your mastery of Eclipse.

Perfect as a companion to an Eclipse programming tutorial (such as Holzner's own Eclipse, O'Reilly, April 2004) or an ideal stand-alone for all those developers who either don't want or don't need the tutorial approach, the "Eclipse Cookbook" contains task-oriented recipes for more than 800 situations you may encounter while using this new Java platform--from deploying a web application automatically to reverse engineering compiled code, from re-naming all references to a class across multiple packages to initializing the SWT JNI libraries.

Each recipein the ever-popular and utterly practical problem-solution-discussion format for O'Reilly cookbooks contains a clear and thorough description of the problem, a brief but complete discussion of a solution, and in-action examples illustrating that solution. The "Eclipse Cookbook" will satiate Java programmers at all levels who are ready to go beyond tutorials--far beyond writing plug-ins and extensions--and actually use the powerful and convenient Eclipse day to day.