it is definitely worth your time to use ant.

you don't have to remember how to build your application
ant will only compile the files that you need compiled
dependencies are taken care of for you
if you work with others, everybody builds the same way


find an example build.xml file, modify it to suit your project and then add targets as you go.

if you use cvs or pvcs or whatever, the build.xml can go in there as well to have your build file in code management.

what editor are you using? you can set them up, depending on the editor to use javac or jikes when you compile one file and then use ant when building.

I totally agree.
Ant provide a great environment to allow the developer
to write scripts by modifying the xml file.

Ant is a very enjoyable developer tool.

David