Ant is a tool written in Java. Many PHP advocates like to defend PHP against other technologies in the web space by claiming, "Use the best tool for the job!" PHP on the Web is a shining example of this. However, I've yet to find any tools written in PHP that can do everything Ant can do. The closest I've found is a project called Phing, but even this tool lacks some advanced aspects of Ant. (Maybe they'll catch up!)
The article isn't an Ant tutorial so much as an overview of what Ant looks like and works like. It includes several examples, including showing off features like archiving abilities and change management...
