Just a few off the top of my head:
- Property immutability holes! :)
- Fileset restrictions - all files must be under a directory root, so its a
very limited view of a file "set" and often leads to some strange
constructs. I'm planning on making a change eventually to allow a single
file fileset to be specified with a path and no 'dir' - but I don't see a
way to make it more generic in Ant 1.x without breaking something because of
the way DirectoryScanner is used and such. Thoughts?
- Classpath issues that require JAR's to be in system classpath. For
example, junit.jar. Is there a way to solve this so the classpath can
literally be empty and internal to the build file a reference to junit.jar's
location is specified? I've got no classloader experience so I haven't a
clue. This leads to the next one...
- Drop-in tasks - being able to extend Ant's capabilities more easily
- Flexible element/attribute naming so that a task can be extended with more
natural constructs without requiring the code be modified: <ejbjar>/<jonas>
for example. Sure, <vendor classname="org.....jonas...."> could be used,
but thats clunky, especially when it comes to dealing with attribute names
that should be more descriptive than <var name="someProperty" value=""/>.
How's that for a start?! :)
Erik
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ant Developers List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 3:28 AM
Subject: Re: TryCatchFinallyTask - thoughts and possible syntax
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 09:14, Bevan Arps wrote:
> > At 20:25 10/02/2002 +1100, Peter Donald wrote:
> > >Error handling in ant sucks ...
> >
> > I agree 100%
>
> As a side issue. Would everyone mind describing what they think are the
worst
> features of ant are? I can think of 4 things that bug me no end (error
> handling is one of them) - anyone else care to generate a list? I would be
> interested to here it. My list basically is
>
> * error handling sucks
> * missing selection (if) constructs (others may add missing repetition
> constructs)
> * PITA to create reusable build file chunks
> * PITA to extend and manage extensions, dependencies and so forth
>
> > Peters Example to explain:
> > ><tbody>
> > > <try>
> > > <echo message="About to fail"/>
> > > <fail message="Failing!"/>
> > > </try>
> > > <catch>
> > > <echo message="the task failed but we are ignoring it"/>
> > > </catch>
> > > <finally>
> > > <echo message="Cleaning up after myself ..."/>
> > > </finally>
> > ></tbody>
> >
> > When does the finally task get executed - before the catch or after?
>
> after - same as in java language.
>
> > For the first, how about this:
> >
> > <try>
> > <echo message="About to make a mess"/>
> > ...
> > <finally>
> > <echo message="Cleaning up mess"/>
> > ....
> > </finally>
> > </try>
> >
> > For the second case, and keeping in mind that the Ant term is "fail":
> >
> > <try>
> > <echo message="About to fail"/>
> > ...
> > <onFail>
> > <echo message="It failed."/>
> > </onFail>
> > </try>
> >
> ...
> > Just my 2c - what do you think?
>
> Interesting - I am going to play with a few build files and see what it
looks
> like ;)
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> Pete
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Whatever you do will be insignificant,
> but it is very important that you do it.
> --Gandhi
> ----------------------------------------
>
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