Just a
quik note to state that after a bit of sputtering I have used ANT to create a
sucessful build in our development enviornment.
We use
Visual Age for Java and InstallShield. Useing the VAJ plugin the process goes as
follows:
Import
current solution from developmet server to Configuration Management
PC.
Edit
Ant script to identify build version (this alos defines the directorys that
build is made to)
Edit
Ant script to identify projects to move to workspace.
Start
VAJ/ANT plugin
Start
ANT script
Projects are moved to workspace
Directory structure for build is created on a networked
PC that is the controlled software libray
Projects with support files are exported to the source
directory in the library
Source
directory is filtered to a static directory where InstallShield is dynamically
linked
InstallShield is started and creates distribution
media to the library disk directory
The
filtered files are moved into library for refrence
Directories and such that are no longer needed are
deleted in a "clean up"
The
ANT script is finished
Finally, another PC that is a dedicated CD burning
machine is used to access the library disk directory to create a
master.
Our
current software "project" is about 45 MB in size and it takes about 90 minutes
for this buid process.
I am
pleased with this process but I would make the following
suggestions:
Include a command line variable in the ANT/VAJ plugin
so that properties can be passed into Ant via
-Dproperty=value.
Include Solution support for the ANT/VAJ plugin so the
individual projects in the script do not have to be manually
edited.
Update
the Ant documentation and provide lots of examples (exhisting documentaiton
is good but it could be better).
In
some cases long file names could be better supported when passing command line
switches to another program.
