At 02:56 12/1/01 -0500, Jason Rosenberg wrote:
>This is a very dangerous precedent, though, since by having the
><script> task, you are inviting lots of backwards compatibility
>complaints in the future.
I don't see anything in you desription that can't be done with xslt/good
build files.
>1. resettable property values.
will be in Ant2.0
>2. direct calling of targets, e.g. <call-target> (not antcall!),
> with parameterized arguments passed to the target.
will be in Ant2.0
>3. tasks then, need to be dynamically reusable and reconfigurable,
> so that when they are traversed as part of call-target, they
> represent fresh instantiations of the task, so that new filesets,
> etc., can be attached to them.
will be in Ant2.0
>4. more functional boolean logic conditions, with the ability to
> call a target directly based on the evaluation. And I am
> in favor of the boolean logic being expressed in an xml
> like structure, instead of cryptic C like expressions. Need
> else functionality too, and possibly case, etc.
will have better boolean testing in attributes like if/unless and available
but unlikely to have if tasks in Ant2.0.
>5. ability to conditionally gate execution of a target before
> evaluating dependencies, as well as after. Currently,
> you can only do so after, using the if/unless syntax.
can you think of a good way of doing this without an extra attribute.
Currently I do this by wrapping it in ant-call
ie
<target name="..." if="precondition">
<antcall target="mytarget" />
</target>
<target name="mytarget" if="postcondition" depends="...">
...
</target>
>6. simple iteration loops, i'd be happy only with a while loop,
> which could be implemented very easily (it is essentially
> a simple goto back to start on condition construct).
will never occur - more likely to build simple declarative structure with
XSLT which has looping/iteration/whatever
>7. improved logging, don't need every target visited reported
> to the output, etc. Perhaps just need a -antsilent flag,
> which suppresses all but explicitly defined task specific output, etc.
agreed.
>The bottom line. Ant is and should be a scripting language. When
>you try to say it isn't, you force people down the <script> route,
>as the only recourse, which is nothing but a can of worms.
nope.
>You are trying to say that Ant is just a language for declaring
>a bunch of build data.
Nope ants build.xml format is a declarative form for describing a build
process.
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 |
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