Chris P. wrote:
Further Investigation clears up some of the mystery.
The following ML post [1] claims that Rant
covers some major use-cases which Rake doesn’t. Key quote: “Rake
appears to have no concern with anything outside the Ruby community”.
In other words, Rake is dedicated to building Ruby software system,
and not interested in building anything else, while Rant is.
The author of that post was familiar with Rake [2], and later became a
lead developer of Rant. So I assume he knows what he’s talking about.
That’s interesting, considering the Rake tutorial
(http://docs.rubyrake.org/read/book/1) actually covers building C code.
Does the OP mention which use cases Rake doesn’t cover? I’d be
curious to know.
That said, the above provides a solid conceptual ground for the
overwhelming preference of Rake over Rant in both Rails and the static
site generation systems I’m currently reviewing, all of which are
focused on very simple and/or Ruby-specific tasks.
I think it stands to reason that most people would use Rake for Ruby (or
C). Just as most people use Ant for Java even though, in theory, you
could use it for something else. Such is the nature of things.
As for more practical grounds, this ML post [3] reveals that as recent
as six months ago, Rant was experiencing serious existential threats.
The sole developer announced he ran out of time and was not planning
any further development. As Rant was at that point (and still is) in
beta state, stagnation meant death. And indeed the major discussion
channel of the Rant community was fizzling out.
That would be a shame. I like the idea that there’s an alternative out
there if we need it.
Under such conditions, it is no wonder that Rant would be perceived as
too risky a choice for anyone but those who actually needed the
non-Ruby-related features it offered over the stable, mature and vital
Rake.
I’m not really sure what risk there is in practical terms, given that
gems are the primary way most people get their code these days.
Gem#add_dependency(‘rant’). 
I looked over the Rant project a bit, btw. Superficially it looked very
similar to Rake, and I didn’t see a compelling reason to switch from
Rake. That doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, however. Rake is certainly
not perfect IMHO, but it’s “good enough”.
At least three of these later sort joined the Rant development
team soon after the quoted discussion took place. Since then, Rant has
been making pretty steady progress. I’m not sure it would become a
tempting alternative for those who can do with Rake, but it certainly
looks poised to becoming more appealing for those who need the extra
features and/or are looking for a build tool for non-Ruby-related
systems.
-Chris
If there’s a compelling reason to switch, then people will switch. If
not, they won’t.
Regards,
Dan