At 09:28 15/12/00 -0500, Jay Glanville wrote:
>> I am not sure I like it ... as a
>> matter of fact I don't like it.
>> It will now encourage users to create
>> incompatable build files by hardwiring compilers into the the
>> build file ;(
>
>I'm not sure I understand your concern. It was my impression that we wanted
>to get away from "magic properties" (the build.compiler is an example of
>one). It's relatively easy to go through the ant-dev archives looking for
>"magic properties" to find people saying they want to reduce their usage.
>The only way that I thought that we could get rid of them is to replace them
>with explicit attributes of a task.
yep - thats one way ;)
>On the subject of the "creation of incompatable build files by hardwiring
>compilers into the build file", let me show you how this new attribute
>PREVENTS that! Lets look at the following build.xml snippet:
> <property file="designer.overrides.properties" />
> <property name="prop.compiler" value="modern" />
> <javac compiler="${prop.compiler}" .../>
It relies on people being intelligent about it. I prefer to think of people
as stupid/lazy and then protect them selves from themselves ;). Now lets
consider the case where Joe Sixpack doesn't enable this and hardwires it to
"modern".
I come along and definetly want to use jikes - what choice do I have -
either modify the build file (yuck) or live with "modern" (double yuck) ;).
Now compare this to the current situation. Usually most projects include at
the top something like
<!--
Give user a chance to override without editing this file
(and without typing -D each time he compiles it)
-->
<property file=".ant.properties"/>
<property file="${user.home}/.ant.properties"/>
in which case I just drop a property file in relevent place to change
compiler. I have global properties set to use jikes so I am sweet and I am
good to go already.
Alternatively if they don't embed above snippet I can do a
-Dbuild.compiler=jikes on commandline. Another option that is no go if
compiler is specified as attribute.
>What does this mean? Without any property over-rides, then the modern
>compiler is used. If the "prop.compiler" property is over-ridden, (with
>"jikes" for example) then the jikes compiler is used ... all without the
>usage of magic properties!
naah it uses magic properties - just not implicit ones. Worse it means that
some projects may or may not provide the magic properties or may name them
different things ;(
>The ability to provide a classname for the
>compiler allows much more flexibility for users where the core supplied
>tasks don't meet their needs.
right - but I think we can do it better someother way ;)
>> What does everyone else think ?
>
>Does a vote for myself count, or is that implicit? ;-) You'll have to
>excuse my British cheek. I blame my parents.
;)
Cheers,
Pete
*-----------------------------------------------------*
| "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind, |
| and proving that there is no need to do so - almost |
| everyone gets busy on the proof." |
| - John Kenneth Galbraith |
*-----------------------------------------------------*
