From: "Stefan Bodewig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Jose Alberto Fernandez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> > There is little reason to force users to check any possible
> > dependency graph in order to make sure all evaluation paths start at
> > "init". It is a waist of the developer time.
>
> If all my targets require the directory "build" to exist, I have to
> ensure that all my targets depend on my "setup" target with the
> appropriate <mkdir> task in it - I don't see that much of a
> difference.
To a certain extend you are right.
The only difference is that if the directory does not exists, then your build
most probably will fail.
If instead your properties are not declared, you will get "${lkjdsfa}" in the
definition strings
and the build will keep on going wrongly.
The other point is that 99.9% of build files declare some properties to be
used, I think the odds
are less for requiring a "build" directory being created and hence dependencies
being required.
An interesting point is whether your example actually means we should allow any
task at top level,
after all one could argue that the <mkdir> should always apply. ;-)
I still think there is an intrinsic ANT concept of "actions that declare
things" that we need to take into
account in a more general and orthogonal fashion than what we do today. And no,
they may not be just
properties.
Jose Alberto
