Guys,
I'm working for a
large telecomm client as one of the lead developers on a relatively new J2EE
project. We've just finished putting together Ant scripts for our
build process and I think Ant is great - its so much better than Make
IMO. We're in the early stages of the project, and the core team is
just releasing our initial "baseline" to the rest of the developers so that they
can begin working on the vertical functionality.
Now I'm getting pushback from the management and CM organizations because they don't want to use Ant (my perception on this is that they don't really know what Ant is, aside from a "replacement for Make"). They've made statements like they don't want to use Ant because its "free and not supported". They are decreeing that everyone shall use Make.
Don't get me
wrong - I think standards
are needed in large
organizations, but there comes a time when
you must re-evaluate all such policies and decide if its time to adapt them to
use more contemporary tools.
From my
perspective, our build process is like driving a nail into a
board. Ant is a hammer, and Make is a big rock. Sure I can use
the Rock to drive the nail, but it would be a lot easier if you'll let me use
the more appropriate tool.
My questions :
- Do any of you have any advice on how to wage this argument (aside from "Ant is cross platform, make is not")...?
- Is there any literature out there which endorses Ant as the recommended build tool for Java projects? This would be helpful in legitimizing Ant as an option.
- Ant has a lot of built in support for Java and J2EE based builds, how effective is it at building C++ based stuff (particularly with large CORBA based systems). We have a very heterogeneous environment here (C++ systems, CORBA/C++ systems, CORBA/Java systems, J2EE based systems, etc).
Any
ammunition will be greatly appreciated :)
Thanks,
Lance Hankins
Focus
Technologies LLC
Phone : 972-396-2064
Fax : 972-396-9283
Cell : 214-616-7064
"To only a fraction of
the human race does God give the privilege
of earning one's bread doing what one would have gladly pursued for free, for passion." - Fred Brooks
