> From: David Bullock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Tim Vernum wrote: > > > I'd like to see list/set based operations. But I like them because > > they're a fairly clean, simple, and powerful way of supporting > > iteration, not because they're declarative. > > > > Point taken. :-) > > The request for 'declarative' comes from people who wish to > attempt to parallelise execution of Ant tasks in a > distributed ( multi-machine / multi-OS ) fashion. >
This is not the case at all. I have never heard anybody given that argument. > I think the contention is that, if the dependency graph > cannot be determined by each execution context at startup ( > which is the benefit of a purely declarative language ), then > it makes the task of implementing this more difficult. > > Without thinking too much about it yet, there seem to be two > basic approaches to 'distributed ant' possible here: > > 1a) a 'controller' antd process invokes the task-building > services of various other antd's ... that is, the controller > knows what the dependency graph is, and simply farms out work > at a task-atomic level. > > 1b) as for 1a, except that chunks of the dependency graph are > farmed out at a time (non task-atomic) > > 2) a set of antd services is given a build-file to build, and > a pointer to a shared BuildState kept in JNDI ( or something > like that ) > > > Intuitively, model 2 seems more flexible. Not sure what the > benefits of knowing the dependency graph at startup would be. > Model 1a doesn't seem to have any special requirements for > the dependency graph to be known at startup. > Model 1b would require the dependency graph to be known at > startup, and not to change. > > > I really think the 'declarative' discussion is up to the > people who want to do 'distributed ant' sometime in the > future. What are the constraints on the buildfile language > that would really be showstoppers if not observed? > > > ( I should add that, in the multi-tool world of Java, it is > important to be able to do distributed builds on different > underlying OS's ) > > > > regards, > David. > > > Thanks everyone, for Ant! > > > David Bullock > LISAsoft Project Lead > Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform > > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > mobile: +61 4 0290 1228 > > "The key ingredients of success are a crystal-clear goal, > a realistic attack plan to achieve that goal, > and consistent, daily action to reach that goal." > > Steve Maguire, "Debugging the Development Process". > > LISAsoft > http://www.lisasoft.com/ > > Adelaide Sydney > -------------------- ------------------------ > 38 Greenhill Rd Level 3, 228 Pitt Street > Wayville S.A. 5034 Sydney NSW 2000 > Australia Australia > > PH +61 8 8272 1555 PH +61 2 9283 0877 > FAX +61 8 8271 1199 FAX +61 2 9283 0866 > -------------------- ------------------------ >
