build tool opinions

[Tim Arnold]

Hi, I'm going through the various build tools (i.e., make-like) available 
and could use some advice.
My documentation-build system is written in python and uses the pdflatex and 
plasTeX engines to create pdfs, html, and docbook XML from latex source 
files.  All that is ok, but I can clean up a lot of code by letting a build 
tool take care of installing the doc, creating build dirs, interacting with 
the CMS, etc.

So I started out looking at ant, since it's so popular. That led me on to 
look at SCons since it's written in python, and that led me on to look at 
'A-A-P'. Well, there's a lot of options out there.

So my question is what should I use? Impossible to answer I know, but it 
looks like SCons and A-A-P haven't had a lot of development activity--that 
seems to be because they're stable, not because they've been abandoned.

Right now I like the fact that SCons and A-A-P are both written in Python; 
On the other hand I think I could use Jython and Ant too.

Any ideas/opinions/advice would be helpful.
--Tim