At 10:07 16/5/01 -0700, Roger Vaughn wrote: >> >deal with, and in the end make it harder for the >> build >> >scripter to understand the system as a whole. >> >> this is false. > >Pretty bold statement there, Peter. I'm glad you're >the authority on this. Perhaps you can explain why >most people I encounter don't understand build >scripting at all - in Ant *or* make.
simple psychology. People can understand complexity in chunks. Make the chunk too big and you loose understanding of most. It is much better to have several layers - each layer doing a specific task. >> You see the absurdity of that arguement - it is the >> same as the one you are >> offering ;) > >Ah, yes, I love it when people take sane discussions >and drive them to extremeism. heh - you thought your arguement was sane? ... oh. >I'll tell you why - it has nothing to do with >scripting or "tabs before commands". It has >everything to do with the javac task. This one task >simplifies the Java dependency checking that is nearly >impossible to do in make (unless you want to write a >rule for every Java file in your system.) it would be simple enough to write a script to do this - so if thats the reason you are using ant... >> Actually you are the one who is proposing to follow >> in makes path. You want >> us to integrate everything into one tool. This will >> force all our users to >> deal with the complexity and eventually tools will >> be built to reduce the >> complexity (enter auto-*). Before too long there >> will be little reason to >> use Ant because it would just be a java version of >> make - and makes been >> around for ever - so why not use that. > >This is the one outrageous claim you guys keep making >that your arrogance won't let you see through. Which >make tool is the most popular? Vanilla make? Nmake? >or GNU make? From what I can see the answer is GNU >make - agreed. >because it gives the developer more features >and thus more power. disagree. It is because it is part of GNU tool chain that it is popular. The complexity is part of GNUs embrace and extend policy - they want to add features that aren't available in other tools so that people will migrate to GNUMake and not go back. >And by the way, I do in fact still use make for C >builds - I tried this in Ant and it just isn't up to >the task. (Not cleanly, anyway.) yup. >> Tool chains are layered for a purpose - I suggest >> you look carefully at the >> reasons because you seem to have some funny >> opinions. > >Well, I guess if asking a build tool to fulfill its >charter and actually perform a complete system build >is asking too much, then yeah, I guess I do have some >funny opinions. It's almost like compilers - it is obviously silly that they don't dopreprocesing inside the compilation tool. Damn silly. >If you will recall, I pushed heavily for XSLT >preprocessing of Ant scripts months ago, but got >shouted down for it then, too. No idea why you think that - that is still my opinion of best path for ant2. 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 | *-----------------------------------------------------*
