At 02:56 12/1/01 -0500, Jason Rosenberg wrote: >This is a very dangerous precedent, though, since by having the ><script> task, you are inviting lots of backwards compatibility >complaints in the future.
I don't see anything in you desription that can't be done with xslt/good build files. >1. resettable property values. will be in Ant2.0 >2. direct calling of targets, e.g. <call-target> (not antcall!), > with parameterized arguments passed to the target. will be in Ant2.0 >3. tasks then, need to be dynamically reusable and reconfigurable, > so that when they are traversed as part of call-target, they > represent fresh instantiations of the task, so that new filesets, > etc., can be attached to them. will be in Ant2.0 >4. more functional boolean logic conditions, with the ability to > call a target directly based on the evaluation. And I am > in favor of the boolean logic being expressed in an xml > like structure, instead of cryptic C like expressions. Need > else functionality too, and possibly case, etc. will have better boolean testing in attributes like if/unless and available but unlikely to have if tasks in Ant2.0. >5. ability to conditionally gate execution of a target before > evaluating dependencies, as well as after. Currently, > you can only do so after, using the if/unless syntax. can you think of a good way of doing this without an extra attribute. Currently I do this by wrapping it in ant-call ie <target name="..." if="precondition"> <antcall target="mytarget" /> </target> <target name="mytarget" if="postcondition" depends="..."> ... </target> >6. simple iteration loops, i'd be happy only with a while loop, > which could be implemented very easily (it is essentially > a simple goto back to start on condition construct). will never occur - more likely to build simple declarative structure with XSLT which has looping/iteration/whatever >7. improved logging, don't need every target visited reported > to the output, etc. Perhaps just need a -antsilent flag, > which suppresses all but explicitly defined task specific output, etc. agreed. >The bottom line. Ant is and should be a scripting language. When >you try to say it isn't, you force people down the <script> route, >as the only recourse, which is nothing but a can of worms. nope. >You are trying to say that Ant is just a language for declaring >a bunch of build data. Nope ants build.xml format is a declarative form for describing a build process. 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 | *-----------------------------------------------------*
