* A-A-P is portable over many systems. At least most Unix variants, MS-Windows and possibly the Macintosh. * A-A-P is open source, free software. Most of it is under the GNU GPL. Interfaces and libraries are more free. * A-A-P is not a monolitic program. It is made out of separate modules with clear interfaces. Most of the work is done by existing tools. * Since network connections are slow and unreliable - and when using a laptop - a local copy of a file is often required. A-A-P caches files, obtains a new version when available and cleans up files that have not been used recently. * The more alternatives there are, the more choices a developer has to make. Making all these choices slows down development. Therefore A-A-P provides a preferred set of modules. Many people will be satisfied with most of these modules, but will still be able to use a different module where they have a preference. * A-A-P is available in a command-line version and in a GUI version. The command-line version works on a console and over a telnet connection. The GUI version is easier to use, but requires a windowing system. * A-A-P maintains a set of preferences. These are global to all projects but local to the user or system. This specifies where specific tools, libraries, documentation files, etc. can be found. This greatly reduces the need to configure a package when building or installing it. * English is used in the original code. Provisions are made to add translations through the use of message files. * Reliability is considered more important than fancy features. A-A-P is a tool you can rely on.

* The most complete Java build and deployment tool available. * Platform neutral and can handle platform-specific properties such as file separators. * Can be used to perform platform-specific tasks such as modifying the modified time of a file using 'touch' command. * Ant scripts are written using plain XML. If you are already familiar with XML, you can learn Ant pretty quickly. * Good at automating complicated repetitive tasks. * Ant comes with a big list of predefined tasks. * Provides an interface to develop custom tasks. * Can be easily invoked from the command line and it can integrate with free and commercial IDEs.