Peter Donald wrote: > At 12:46 15/5/01 -0700, Alan George wrote: > >I agree that an 'XML scripting language' is a bad idea. But on the other > hand, > >having 'some' conditional processing in a build tool could be a good > thing. In > >fact there is already 'some' conditional processing features available in ant > >(e.g. the target's if and unless, the available task, dependencies, etc.). > >Using the strict 'no XML scripting language' argument, these features > should be > >removed. To create a build environment that is generic enough to handle > >multiple products and concurrent revisions and do this with ant requires some > >scripting language like features. If ant can't make some of these > decisions at > >run time, it loses a lot of value. Or maybe I am expecting too much from > ant. > > I think you are confusing what Ant is supposed to do ;) Ant doesn't pretend > to offer any genericness features - you can do it via DTD includes, > ant-calls and complicated build.xml files but it wasn't really designed > with that in mind. > > For Ant2 we do plan to offer genericness via "templating" - the > how/why/where/whens of which have yet to be worked out but it will be > probably be via some transformation tool (XSLT/Velocity/XSP/other). However > I don't think the plan is to offer genericness in ant build files. > > 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 | > *-----------------------------------------------------*
I am sorry, I must be confused, I though ant was supposed to be a build tool;) Why is everybody so hung up on 'if does not make since to do this in XML it must not be a build problem we need to solve'. I think your focus on XML is mistake. A build is a work flow not some static data format (i.e. XML). When all you have is a hammer..... Also, I can't get around the fact that there are if/unless attributes for targets. If conditional processing of a build is so bad, why do targets support this. If you where more consistent, you might not get bozzos off the street like me saying "give me more". -alan
