Why is no one using make for Java?

Question

Just about every Java project that I\'ve seen either uses Maven or Ant. They are fine tools and I think just about any project can use them. But what ever happened to make

Answer 1

All the other answers about the technical merits of each are true. Ant and Maven may be better suited to Java than make, or as Hank Gay points out, they may not :)

However, you asked if it matters that Ant and Maven are written in Java. Although on StackOverflow we don't consider such thoughts (closed! not-programming-related! etc.), OF COURSE THAT'S PART OF THE THING. On rails we use Rake, C dudes use make, and in Java we use Ant and Maven. While it's true that the Ant or Maven developers will look after the Java developer perhaps better than others, there's also another question: what do you write Ant tasks in? Java. If you're a Java developer, that's an easy fit.

So yeah, part of it is to use tools written in the language you are tooling.