Louis Tribble wrote: > > Simplicity of use*, because if the build instructions for typical > projects begin with "install Ant _and_ scripting app XYZ", even > installing isn't so simple. Needing to learn yet another language > just to understand the build file makes it even less simple. I'd > really rather go read a real Ant task: I already know Java.
For most simple scripting tasks, JavaScript is virtually indistinguistable from Java. BSF (and therefore the <script> task) supports Java as a scripting language, but as this involves wrappering and compiling, it is quite noticably slower. > Portability, because a build file that requires scripting is only > as portable as the scripting application. Both the BSF core and the Mozilla implementation of JavaScript are open source and 100% Java. Both could be distributed with Ant. > I'd argue that projects that really want the simplicity and > portability benefits of Ant should not use scripting. If they > need something that Ant doesn't support, they should provide > an appropriate Ant task. For common requirements, it would be > a shame not to provide a standard task, or at least a standard > "optional" task. No question for tasks that "do" things. What is more subtle is tasks that control other things. Loops. Conditionals. The issue isn't using a scripting language - it is inventing yet another one. - Sam Ruby
