We have been using CruiseControl for CI on a C++ project. While it is the only thing we use ant for, the ant build script for CruiseControl just starts our normal build script, so it is very simple and we haven't really needed to update it in a long while. Therefore the fact that CrusieControl is Java based has not really been an issue at all for us.
The main benefits of using something like cruise control are
A nice web page showing build status
Email after each build or after failed builds
Automatically build after a commit to the source control system
A firefox plugin to monitor the build status
Shows the output for any build errors.
Shows what files have changed since the last build (good for seeing which developer broke the buid)
Of course you can write a script yourself which does all of this, but why do all that work? In the long run the extra initial cost of setting up CruiseControl (or something similar) is probably much less than the cost of maintaining and updating a custom CI build script.
If all you need is to launch a daily build and a simple script started by cron is sufficient for your needs then by all means do that. However, one of the advantages of CI is that you get a build status report after every check in. Writing a script to do that takes more work and CruiseControl already does it.
We have been using CruiseControl for CI on a C++ project. While it is the only thing we use ant for, the ant build script for CruiseControl just starts our normal build script, so it is very simple and we haven't really needed to update it in a long while. Therefore the fact that CrusieControl is Java based has not really been an issue at all for us.
The main benefits of using something like cruise control are
A nice web page showing build status
Email after each build or after failed builds
Automatically build after a commit to the source control system
A firefox plugin to monitor the build status
Shows the output for any build errors.
Shows what files have changed since the last build (good for seeing which developer broke the buid)
Of course you can write a script yourself which does all of this, but why do all that work? In the long run the extra initial cost of setting up CruiseControl (or something similar) is probably much less than the cost of maintaining and updating a custom CI build script.
If all you need is to launch a daily build and a simple script started by cron is sufficient for your needs then by all means do that. However, one of the advantages of CI is that you get a build status report after every check in. Writing a script to do that takes more work and CruiseControl already does it.