i do not know what 'make' program is all about ? Please let me know in simple terms.
'make' (and 'ant') take care of the build process that you'd otherwise have to do
manually. Suppose you have files A.java, B.java, C.java and D.java. D depends
on B and C, and both B and C depend on A.
Suppose you compile them all, so you now also have A.class, B.class, C.class
and D.class. Next you change D.java; which files have to be recompiled? And
what if you change B.java?
The javac compiler does a lot of work itself for this but there's more that needs
to be done: resources (.gifs, .jpegs, .properties files etc) need to be up to date,
the entire shebang probably needs to end up in a jar file, a previous version
probably needs to be deleted. All intermediate files probably have to go, etc.
That's what 'make' and 'ant' can do for you, both in their own way and 'ant' is
the chosen utility for Java.
kind regards,
Jos