From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > A number of people ( usually those who -1 the adding of scripting > elements) believe ant should be more 'descriptive', and not > procedural. That's why it's called <project> - it is intended to > describe the project, including how to build various components. >
This is an interesting point, given that ANT does not have an specific concept of <component/> that for example could be describe generically or be provided a particular set of properties for configuration. The reality is that ANT only knows how to express flat targets with a flat space for properties (i.e., configuration) and its dependencies. I think that for very large or complex projects it becomes not easy or maintainable to do it this way. > Most people only 'describe' how to build and test it, and do that > in a procedural way. That's where the need for <if>, <while>, etc comes > from, and that's why ant files become ugly and hard to understand. > I agree with you that <while> is inheritely procedural (since it is based on observing changes in the state of the while condition), but <if> and <for-each> are not inheritely procedural. I do not think you can consider XSLT procedural and you have <choose> and <for-each> as well as inmutable variables (just as in ANT). Jose Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
