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? It's used for a variety of non-Java projects and can easily handle Java. Sure you have to download make.exe if you use Windows, but Ant and Maven also don't come with the JDK.
Is there some fundamental flaw with make when used with Java? Is it just because Ant and Maven are written in Java?
Ant and later Maven were designed to solve some headaches caused by Make ( while creating new ones in the process ) It is just evolution.
...Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles....
From http://ant.apache.org/faq.html#history
Whether they solve anything or just create an extra format to learn is a subjective topic. The truth is that's pretty much the history of every new invention: The creator says it solves a lot of problems and the original users say those are virtues.
The main advantage it has, is the possibility to integrate with java.
I guess a similar history would be with rake for instance.
The venerable make program handles separately compiled languages like C and C++ reasonably well. You compile a module, it uses #include to pull in the text of other include files, and writes a single object file as output. The compiler is very much a one-at-a-time system, with a separate linking step to bind the object files into an executable binary.
However, in Java, the compiler has to actually compile other classes that you import with import. Although it would be possible to write something that generated all the necessary dependencies from Java source code, so that make would build classes in the correct order one at a time, this still wouldn't handle cases such as circular dependencies.
The Java compiler can also be more efficient by caching the compiled results of other classes while compiling further classes that depend on the results of ones already compiled. This sort of automatic dependency evaluation is not really possible with make alone.
Ant and Maven approach the build dependency graph and the management of it from a more 'modern' view... But as Oscar says, they created their own problems while attempting to address the old problems with make.
One of the major issues solved by Maven (and Ivy-enabled Ant setups) over make is automated dependency resolution and downloading of your dependency jars.
The question is based on an incorrect assumption: a non-trivial number of developers do use make. See Java Build Tools: Ant vs. Maven. As for why a developer wouldn't use make: many developers either have never used make, or used it and hated it with a fire that burns hotter than a thousand suns. As such, they use alternative tools.
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.
The fundamental issue with Make and Java is that Make works on the premise that you have specify a dependency, and then a rule to resolve that dependency.
With basic C, that typically "to convert a main.c file to a main.o file, run "cc main.c".
You can do that in java, but you quickly learn something.
Mostly that the javac compiler is slow to start up.
The difference between:
javac Main.java
javac This.java
javac That.java
javac Other.java
and
javac Main.java This.java That.java Other.java
is night and day.
Exacerbate that with hundreds of classes, and it just becomes untenable.
Then you combine that with the fact that java tends to be organized as groups of files in directories, vs C and others which tend towards a flatter structure. Make doesn't have much direct support to working with hierarchies of files.
Make also isn't very good at determining what files are out of date, at a collection level.
With Ant, it will go through and sum up all of the files that are out of date, and then compile them in one go. Make will simply call the java compiler on each individual compiler. Having make NOT do this requires enough external tooling to really show that Make is not quite up to the task.
That's why alternatives like Ant and Maven rose up.
I've never used GNU Make for Java projects, but I used to use jmk. Sadly it hasn't been updated since 2002.
It had some Java-specific functionality but was small enough to include in your source tarball without significantly increasing its size.
Nowadays I just assume any Java developer I share code with has Ant installed.
One big reason is that both Ant and Maven (and most java targeted SCM, CI and IDE tools) are written in java by/for java developers. This makes it simpler to integrate into your development environment and allows other tools such as the IDE and CI servers to integrate portions of the ant/maven libraries within the build/deployment infrastructure.
Make scripts tend to be inherently platform dependent. Java is supposed to be platform independent. Therefore having a build system that only works on one platform for a multi-platform sourcebase is kindof a problem.