At the momemt I am creating ebuilds for my favoutite stuff. When
packaging Java packages though, should I compile them from source
always? I noticed Ant (dev-java/ant) is an example such a package. It
seems to me, that there is little point in compiling most Java items if
a binary is already available in a timely and reliable manner (meaning a
binary build comes out at the approximate same time the new source
release does).

So might this be the rule of thumb: If some Java application/binary is
already available from the authors site in both binary and source form,
and the author provides a binary build frequently and reliably, then use
the binary from the ebuild?

Thanks,

Matt