>It's just never been clear to me why we need this particular cake at all. >The behaviour used to be: > When nothing is specified, Ant looks for a build.xml file in the > current directory. When found, it uses that file as a buildfile. > To make Ant use another buildfile, use the commandline option > -buildfile <file>, where <file> is the buildfile you want to use. >The nice thing about that, from my perspective, is that it's what I'd >expect. What I wouldn't expect (and why I "voted" against the change) is >for ant to wander up the tree looking for one, and executing whatever >happened to be in the first one it found.
EEK! Please don't make it do that. Please, people, KISS with regard to Ant. It is the most elegant, simple build tool I've ever used. Don't ruin it by trying to make it do everything in the universe. If you MUST add functionality, at least keep the semantics of the simpler features unchanged so that the simple, intuitive way it works now is not corrupted by "expert features". Remember, an Ant-sized ant can lift 5 times its body weight or more, but an elephant-sized Ant would tear itself apart trying to accomplish the same feat! --John P.S. Does Ant mean or stand for anything?
